The Drill...then
The Drill for me as F/O, after having assisted my Captain with the Ditching, required me to go through the passenger cabin to the rear passenger door...
("Please stay in your places and let me through..." to each of the 100+ SLF)
I was to take a large Dinghy, put it through the door, inflate it and float it to the port wing, so that passengers from the port escapes could embark. I then was required to take the second Dinghy, inflate that and board it, paddle it myself around the tailplane to the starboard wing, so that the rest of the passengers could embark.
This would be easier to do, I think,
(a) by daylight,
(b) with a flat calm sea
(c) without ANY wind
We never practiced this on training... too expensive on aircraft, but we had a good write up from another airline using the same type of aircraft who said that "they were good at it because they practiced"!
(How shameful to be seen paddling away in the second dinghy just as a gust of wind sprung up taking the dinghy and me out of sight... Today, this would all have been recorded on passengers' mobile telephones !)
Last edited by Linktrained; 14th Jun 2012 at 16:58.