Originally Posted by
Less Hair
Could they be evacuated within 90 seconds? Would a passenger life vest work for them?
There is no
requirement for an aircraft to be evacuated in 90 seconds or any other stated measure of time.
Commonly the
ability to do so to has to be
demonstrated during the type's certification process which is quite another matter.
Nonetheless I was once tasked for a number of 'pilgrim' flights to Lourdes. We typically carried up to 30 patients all quadroplegic or nearly so plus two helpers each. Boarding and disembarcation took 60-90 minutes. In the event of a fire we'd have been lucky to have evacuated half a dozen helpers, if they'd have even been persuaded to leave their charges which I doubt. The Authority (of a devoutly Catholic country) granted an exemption to so operate given that all pax were made aware of the impossibility of a rapid evacuation.
No consideration was given to the moral dilemma of the crew who ordered it whilst being perfectly capable of scampering away from the scene. We had some meaningful conversations in the hotac and while all were glad, proud even to have been involved in such a worthwhile (to the pax) operation we were all deeply troubled by the ramifications if something went wrong. No one was sad when those flights stopped I can tell you.