Re: The Flight Attendants
Capt Cynical--
The New York times had some accounts of the scene in the rear of the AC that decribe some of the actions of the flight attendant in that area. These appeared 2 or 3 days after the event; I'm not sure I still have the paper. They were not printed in the Washington Post. The gist was:
A passenger said that another passenger attempted to open the rear door (I believe left rear), but that the flight attendant suceeded in stopping this passenger, but not before the door opened "a crack". It was not possible to reclose the door.
A tall male passenger reported that he realized that the flooding in the tail area of the cabin would become too deep for shorter passengers, and he grasped a woman and her child and bulled his way to the head of the line (I believe this would have been to the overwing exits.)
The woman who went forward over the seatbacks had a small child with her. (I infer her actions were for the same reason; it was not clear from the reports whether this made other passengers see the problem for the smaller passengers, or whether there were just a very few women and children, and these two actions sufficed.)
The Times also had a brief report from this flight attendant, who said that she found herself in water up to her chest, and so thought it would be a good idea if she found and put on a life vest. (On thinking about this brief comment, I have to think that she must have realized that otherwise the water might get over her head. I assume she felt she must be the last off from that area and could not herself go forward ahead of others.)
The last Times report of these that I recall was from a passenger who concluded after exiting that there were not enough life rafts. (Two at the front doors appeared to me from pictures to be serviceable, at a reported capacity of 50 to 55 people but not filled to this number. The two at the rear door would have been non-deployable without opening the rear doors. It is unclear to me if the left rear slide/raft later deployed with equalization of pressure on the door, or if it deployed as the door opened "a crack", or as part of the retrieval dewatering; some pictures seemed to show something back there. The situation with rafts/slides in the overwing area is unclear to me. From reports on the effect of immersion on one woman who slipped off the wing, it seems to me that passengers could not in general have gotten from the wing into the forward rafts-- although this woman may have spent some time in deep water inside the plane as well.)
The Times also published on Saturday a picture of an inflated life vest in the water, in b/w, that clearly was marked "US Air". On Sunday they published a color picture of the same vest, with only US A clearly visible.
OE