Originally Posted by
ECENE
What puzzles me about the report is how much it focuses on lessons learned about passengers taking their baggage, in opposition to the consideration given to how unprepared the senior was, and more importantly why was she so.
No hunt for blame, but regulators really should see a problem here, and I am afraid it is spreading through the industry.
Yes there is - page 25.
The SFA had recently been promoted after a relatively short time as an FA. During her time as FA, there was a period where she did not fly due to the operator’s bankruptcy. As a result, she did not meet the operator’s requirement for promotion in terms of duration of operational experience. Her initial training course as an FA was within a large group which may have resulted in aspects not being fully explained or understood by all that attended. The pressure to have staff operationally available for flights after the bankruptcy and change of operator meant that the subsequent training for SFA was purely theoretical and short in comparison to the operator’s more recent practice. These factors may have meant that the SFA was not well prepared for her role in the emergency.
All FA practical training for emergencies involved a practice evacuation. None of them had practiced a return to normal operation. This may have resulted in a false expectation that all emergencies would result in an evacuation.
Overall, it seems that the SFA’s emotional response to the emergency was aggravated by her general inexperience and the communication difficulties the FAs encountered. Despite meeting regulatory requirements, there were weaknesses in her training that meant she was not well prepared for the situation. Together this resulted in an overwhelming ‘flight’ response in which she felt the need for herself and everyone else in the cabin to escape the situation as quickly as possible. She did not contact the pilots and ended up commanding an evacuation. The operator has undertaken to implement a range of improvements to FA training and to instruct FAs to attempt to establish communication with the flight deck before commanding an evacuation.