Originally Posted by
Airbubba
The flight engineer title came from the State Police casualty list. Ms. Homendy referred to him as a loadmaster in the latest NTSB briefing. Some early news reports referred to the third crewmember as a steward.
Yes, that fits with my experience when I took a flight in '909' back in 2007.
3rd crew member was there to check every one strapped in and give safety briefing etc., and to help shuffle the PAX around once in the air etc. so everyone had a chance to experience each bit of the a/c in flight.
I suspect the ones that got out were the PAX that were sitting on the side seats in the rear fuselage section by the door hatch, by the waist gunner positions, rather than those sitting on the floor of the radio op area (where I was)