From a professional point of view, quite an interesting incident. We practice an evacuation each sim and feel confident we know what to do, but this incident highlights that the procedures we practice never actually really occur in the way we think they will. After GLA it was pointed out that once the evacuation drill was completed in the sim we usually head off for coffee and a break, whereas in real life, the pilots have a lot more duties to perform and made us all think about further actions (which the GLA crew performed well).
In this incident, we have to ask ourselves what would we do if the evacuation was required on stand, with engines shut down, seatbelt signs off and with all pax already in the aisle collecting their luggage from overhead lockers coupled with a failure of the PA system? Honestly, how many times have an average crew practiced this scenario in the sim? What would we have done? What other weird and wonderful variants of the evacuation could occur that we haven't yet practiced, or even considered?
From what I hear, it was another good job done by the crew in difficult conditions. Well done chaps!
