Originally Posted by
oicur12.again
Ian W,
You really have taken the argument to the extreme. No one is suggesting that the decision is to be conducted without thinking.
But this was a significant fire that was not easy to knock down.
But that is just the point. Multiple contributors
have stated do not think - fire=evacuate no exceptions. Several have said they cannot think of
any occurrence that evacuation would not be required, and several have said if they were in an aircraft as pax they would disregard any direction from the front and rear crew and deploy the slides themselves.
So fair enough - no need for captain's involvement at all. If there is a fire automatics, brake to a halt fire on downwind side, escape slides deploy automatically as soon as the aircraft is at halt on the side away from the fire if appropriate.
If there is a decision to be made on evacuation - it means there are alternatives. It is illogical to require the captain make a decision but then say that there is no alternative to
immediate evacuation. Hence there is no decision to make.
Yet, in this case instead of say 5% of pax evacuating having to be hospitalized, no-one was injured. For those worried about the short length of time to discharge a fire tender's load of fire retardant foam, have a look at how many were in the immediate response and how many Changi can get to an emergency rather than just those initial (very rapid) responders.
As I said before, none of us know what information and advice the captain had in this case that led to his decision not to evacuate. When or if we receive that information the decision can be assessed, but in this case by the
results it
was the right decision.