Originally Posted by
Capt Fathom
KRviator.
I suspect due to the distance from the R1 door sill to the ground, each passenger had to sit down on the sill and lower themselves to the ground. I doubt there was a jumping castle in position to catch them.
If there was fire licking at their heels, I'm sure they would have jumped faster!
That's exactly what I'm thinking,
Capt but....My question is once the Evac command is given, it's not up to the skipper to decide which exits to use or how to abandon the aircraft. Or
is it in Rex?
If there's fire/smoke/obstruction the CC are trained to not open that exit and direct people to another usable one. In this case, the skipper directed R1 only and as a result, 25POB took longer to get out of a SAAB 340 in perfect conditions than 170 people did to evacuate a well-and-truly burning 777 following an engine letting go
and the crew leaving the [good] engine running for 45 seconds after commanding the evacuation rendering some slides unusabe!
As regards the incident itself though, ISTR we had a similar issue with one of the Army KingAirs at Brissy many years ago whereby a cloud of unburnt fuel spat out the back and ignited with someone promptly calling RFFS...