I was on BA288 on the night of the evacuation so I can clear up some of the uncertainties and expand on what P&H and WD have said. I have a CPL, I’m about to start my IR and I’ve previously worked as cabin crew so I’m in quite a good position to comment on the incident.
It seemed a little while before the decision was taken to deploy the slides
I'd agree with this. By the time we evacuated the smell had got pretty bad and it was very irritating to the throat, nose and eyes. Many people including myself had started to cough and choke and understandably people with young children were getting very concerned.
It had left the gate but had not reached the holding point (and it's a very short taxi). Very acrid smoke was coming from the rear of the passenger cabin (galley, maybe??) and some young children were carried forward because of this smoke. I understand the smoke had something of a peroxide-type smell.
Most of this is correct. I had noticed the odd smell before we pushed back, but it got increasingly worse after push back. A few mins into the taxi one of the flight crew came onto the PA and said that they were heading back to the terminal because they were getting a bad smell. I was a bit surprised by this comment as it implied that they were unaware that the whole aircraft was equally affected by the smell. I was part of a large group that was spread all over the aircraft in every class so I can confirm this. Since everyone was getting the smell, I assume that the gas was circulating through the air conditioning system. As we taxied back one of the crew suggested over the PA that we use the headrest covers to cover our mouth.
The smell got increasingly worse and there was some blue flashing, which I initially I thought was a camera flash, but one of my colleagues later confirmed that it was sparks. Immediately after the sparking, smoke started to rise up from around 34ABC, just to my left and one row behind. I later spoke to a couple who were supposed to sit on these seats and they told me that they were moved because the IFEs were inop so this may be a significant factor.
all the door slides were deployed, it appeared.
This is incorrect. All of the photos and videos show the right hand side of the aircraft, where it is true that all the slides deployed correctly. However none of the slides on the left were successfully deployed.
When the smoke started, I immediately made my way to the left overwing exit. When I reached it, the door was opened, but there was no crew in sight and the slide was not deployed, so it is possible that it had been opened by another pax and was not set to automatic. I looked around for the manual inflation, but I couldn’t find it. Eventually a crewmember appeared, but she also couldn’t get the slide inflated. In the end I exited out of the right overwing. There was a man with an artificial leg using this exit who was having some difficulty so I spent over a minute standing on the walkway above the wing and I was one of the last pax to get off the plane.
Later when we walked into the terminal, I noticed that on the left hand side, only one slide had deployed (possibly L1), but it was not inflated. There was some ground equipment and the air bridge to the left, but I don’t think they were that close that they would have impeded the use of the left slides.
i understand that a fire on a fully fueled aircraft is a very scary thing but was it really necessary given the jetbridge was still in place?
We had taxied out and back to the stand, but the bridge was not in place. I think the situation was serious enough to warrant a quicker evacuation than would have been possible by reconnecting the air bridge. There may have been more panic if the only way out was through one door and everyone was pushing forward to get out the same way.
1. What was the "smoke state" in the cabin?
- was visibility impaired: 5m / 1m?
- where did it get to in terms of breathe-ability: choking?
2. Do you ( &/ your wife) think the correct decision was taken this time?
- and was this done too late / too soon?
1) Initially there was just the acrid smell, which was very uncomfortable and made breathing difficult. It was sore on the throat, nose and eyes and caused coughing and choking. Visibility was only slightly impaired by the smoke, as we evacuated soon after the smoke began appearing and it was not that thick. I’m told by one of my colleagues that while I was trying to inflate the left overwing slide, one of the cabin crew deployed a BCF in the area where the smoke was coming from, which reduced the amount of smoke that was being produced.
2) I would have liked to see us getting out quicker. I don’t think it was necessary for us to wait until we got back to the terminal before we evacuated. The situation was serious enough to warrant an evacuation earlier. Furthermore there was never an actual evacuation command given by the crew, as I was moving towards the exit to try to inflate the slide, many people were still sitting in their seats with their seatbelts on.
How did the ground staff handle the accomadation problem?
They got there eventually, but they were understaffed and it was a very slow process. My group of nearly 20 were initially told that we couldn’t all get a room. It was a case of computer says no, but when we persuaded them to try again, computer finally said yes. The evacuation was just before 8pm local time and it was 2am by the time we reached the hotel.
I missed a connection from Heathrow and in the morning when I turned up for attempt two at getting to the UK, the staff at Phoenix refused to try rebooking me on another BA flight beyond Heathrow. Luckily we travelled through Denver on the way to Heathrow and a very lovely woman there was more helpful. She got me on standby for the first flight to my destination with a confirmed seat on the next, as well as a very generous amount of food/drink vouchers for use at Denver Airport and I was also upgraded for the Trans-Atlantic flight.
My concern would be the report that folks were taking their bags down the slides.
Though I didn’t personally see anybody go down the slides with bags, it was evident from the amount of luggage out on the apron that many had taken their bags. Some of the cabin crew could have been a bit more vocal with their commands. The crewmember at the door I eventually used was not saying a word. In another part of the cabin some of my colleagues, who are also former cabin crew, were directing pax during the evacuation and they stopped a number of people from taking their bags.
I'm quite surprised nobody has picked up on the fifteen or twenty minutes all the passengers spent standing around out on the ramp comparatively close to the aircraft, watching the fire crews arrive and investigate??
This did concern me, more so how close we were rather than how long we waited though.
"emergency evacuation, emergency evacuation, right hand side of the aircraft only"
This was not audible in the part of the cabin where I was and of all the others in my group that I've asked, none of them heard this either.
Last edited by Potential; 14th Jul 2009 at 16:17.