Originally Posted by
Julio747
(2) You cannot write off the China Air as being irrelevant because the ARFF took 5 mins. The plane exploded well before that time and the passengers would have been toast at 3 minutes in. By 5 mins it was a burning wreck.
(3) it took slight over a minute for the fire services to arrive by my reckoning. Now add 90 seconds for an evac, and you are at 2.5 minutes. Check China Air at that time stamp!
At the 2.5 minutes stage the SIA flight had had a mother-load of foam being sprayed onto it for over 1.5 minutes and thus the danger of a tank involvement was rapidly DECREASING.
The Air China aircraft had no ARFF intervention at that point and thus the danger of (an inevitable) tank involvement was rapidly INCREASING.
That's the difference.
If SIA aircraft had initiated an evacuation immediately then they would have had no ARFF to watch their backs if something happened inside that first minute and passengers were exposed outside of the aircraft. If I'm ever safe but trapped behind enemy lines - with the enemy advancing - I think I'd be safer staying put if I knew the calvary were only 1 minute away.