How many people have died due to fellow pax bringing some stuff with them in an accident like this one?
It's relatively easy to categorise the type of accident well after the event. Aircraft incidents always have the potential of becoming accidents very quickly.
Have you seen people bringing bags out of a burning aircraft?
Asiana Flight 214 crash video shows terrifying moment passengers fled burning jet | Daily Mail Online
We once had an over-enthusiastic flight crew member break his arm when he took a fire extinguisher down a slide with him when there was a brake fire. Is it a possibility that the extinguisher interfered with his ability to balance on the slide?
And what if the passengers lose these items on the way down the slides. Do we have to slide through a debris field or stumble over a pile of cabin bags at the end of a slide?
My wallet & passport are in my computer bag 'cause the airline seat is so narrow that I can not sit down with it in my pocket
I really don't think economy passenger seat widths have changed that much in 40 years. I carry back up data for my computer on a multi-gigabyte USB stick in my pocket. A passport I can always carry in my shirt pocket.
Agreed, things
have changed in 40 years. In general, people have become much more blasé about air travel, treat air travel as they would bus travel, do ignore the advice given to them based on decades of safety studies (including dressing appropriately).
now much of the airplane staff treat us as unwashed, unwelcome, ignorant interlopers.
Wouldn't it be the
responsibility of staff to treat you as ignorant? They can't assume you know everything about safety, hence the safety briefing.. and the safety cards in the seat pocket (which most seem to ignore). Do you keep your sensible shoes on for takeoff and landing? (safety cards sometimes tell you this) I'm sure the passenger next to you would care more about whether you are unwashed or not.
40 years ago you would have been denied boarding for wearing t-shirts, shorts and sandals (on safety grounds). How times have changed.