Originally Posted by
slip and turn
No I did, as possibly something that was worth discussing pending the long wait for a full report on the specifics of this tragedy. The affect of terrain on the aftermath of this one is not really questionned, is it?
I think it is relevant to discuss the terrain and that it probably did affect survivability. Two main ways it could do that - changing the initial impact and delaying the rescue response.
I don't think there is much doubt about the latter - just looking at the terrain it's obvious they wouldn't have got there as quickly as on the flat, and firefighters are now being quoted saying as much: "There were too few firefighters at the beginning".
In terms of the initial impact it depends on what exactly happened, which isn't at all clear yet. If the aircraft rotated and then came down again on its wheels and
then veered off the runway, then on flat ground it might well have slid on its belly for a better result. On the other hand, if it became airborne and then (for whatever reason) put a wing into the ground (as some reports have suggested) then it could have cartwheeled in and broken up even on flat ground.
Sioux City had some horrible initial decelerative forces but if my memory serves correctly, people primarily self-evacuated from the large pieces after they slid to a halt. I am not sure that level access for the fire services was a significant survival factor on that one, just lots of level space to decelerate uniformly in one plane...maybe it was a bit of both, but the passengers fared proportionately so much better than in this one, I think?
Interesting one to compare to. Certianly a lot more survived 232 - almost two thirds, compared to around 1 in 10 in this case. "Bit of both" would agree with what has been written about 232. In terms of flat land it wasn't just the airfield:
Originally Posted by transcript of speech by the captain
in the back of
our mind that where we were, if we had to ditch, we could probably find
some fairly flat land, and we might have a chance of survival. So that
relieved a lot of pressure on us, in whether or not we were going to
make the airport.
In terms of the emergency response they had a lot of luck - a national guard unit happened to be at the airport to assist, and it was shift change at local hospitals meaning they had double shift of medical staff available.
There are some other differences which may considerably affect survival rate though:
- flight 232 had plenty of warning of the crash
- they were not at takeoff with full fuel load - in fact they dumped fuel (as you would expect)
- airport had advance warning and emergency vehicles were out and ready
- hospitals and surrounding emergency services had advance warning
- passengers on the plane had warning - brace position in theory allows much better survival of deceleration (although how it gets done in practice I don't know, I've never met an economy class seat it was physically possible in (excepting exit-row), and I don't think I am exceptionally tall)
Even if there are recommendations on survivability they may be largely academic - the industry tends to focus a lot more on not crashing in the first place rather than crashing and surviving. I am pretty sure that after Sioux city
and Kegworth there were recommendations on infant seating and restraint - but two decades on they are still on parents laps. Then there's smoke hoods... or rather there aren't.