ATSB Report on Jetstar Evacuation

[neville_nobody]

Jetstar are finding out that you get what you pay for. Money not spend on training will be spent on PR trying to fix up the damage. This incident doesn't paint Jetstar in a particularly good light at all. After all the spin of "low wages/costs doesn't mean poor safety" I think that this incident may show otherwise.


ATSB Report

http://www.atsb.gov.au/publications/investigation_reports/2005/AAIR/aair200502137.aspx


SMH Article
http://www.smh.com.au/news/travel/chatty-jetstar-crews-emergency-flaws/2006/10/31/1162056969906.html

[Capt Fathom]

I am yet to read any incident report where the evacuation has gone smoothly. It's not something we get to practise and it never runs to a script!
No I don't work for Jetstar!

[neville_nobody]

Evacs are a messy at the best of time, however the issues here are that certain people had no training for such events, crew were not following SOPS, parts on the engine was installed incorrectly, people were chatting away at inappropiate times, checklists were not followed. After reading the report it sounds like the crews (ground/cabin/flight) were a little under done in their training and come across as being a little unprofessional in the completion of their duty. They were lucky that there were only 21 people on the aircraft so it wasn't such a big deal. Had it been a full boat I imagine it would have been a nightmare.

Jetstar to their credit have change alot of their proceedures and policies as a result of this and come out in the wash looking alright however after reading the report ones begins to wonder what other latent failures are lurking within the Jetstar operation as a result of "cost savings".

[ditzyboy]

After all the spin of "low wages/costs doesn't mean poor safety" I think that this incident may show otherwise.

What an idiotic wind-up. From a cabin crew angle these sorts of things happen regularily both in normal operations and evacuations. Doors not armed or dis-armed properly due to bad technique or habit - especially on 737/717 doors. Doors being dis-armed instead of opened - easy to do on the larger aircraft where the arm/dis-arm lever is the only one an FA touches on a day-to-day basis.

By reading the report I think the cabin crew did a great job in terms of situational awareness during the evacution. Sure they forgot the megaphones and poxy useless first aid kits but I can remember in my initials being told they weren't required at airport locations. My current airline doesn't even have a reference to them in impact drills like Jetstar did at the time.

As far as experience goes the CM with 11 years is the one who forgot perhaps one of the most important things - the Tech Crew! And there is a very plausible explanation given in the report.

You can't say that any item mentioned in the report happened because it was Jetstar - from a cabin crew perspective at least. I fly every day with people from 2 weeks to 35 years experience. And the way some of them carrry on about having to carry a waiter's cloth in business class or serve hot chocolate makes me very dubious about how they would perform under pressure. These sorts of things are common to all airlines.

Sounds like the ground staff were ill-prepared. I do believe Jetstar could better train its ground staff. After experiencing some ports with this airline (two in particular) I found them to be inadequately trained (training should be more thorough) and supervised. Not their fault. Just Jetstar trying to save money yet it costs them in the long run time and time again.

Is there even any mandatory requirement for airlines to train their ground staff on their role in an evacuation? If there is I bet it is very generic and 'light' at best.

[airbusthreetwenty]

Is there even any mandatory requirement for airlines to train their ground staff on their role in an evacuation? If there is I bet it is very generic and 'light' at best.

...my best guesstimate would be no.

I've never heard of ground staff being trained in evac procedures.

[sinala1]

The Australian has a story on this evac, with the headline "Chatty Crew contributed to chaos" and the following excerpt:

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20675999-23349,00.html

CHATTY cabin crew and a worker on the airport tarmac with no emergency training helped create a chaotic evacuation of a Jetstar plane in which passengers were injured, a report has found.

If the AAP, who provided this story to the Australian, had bothered to actually read the report, they would see the reference being made to "non-relevant" conversation is actually for the Pilots - nowhere is a reference made to the cabin crew's conversation. (not that I am badmouthing the boys up front, just providing clarification)

Secondly, the report does not refer to "chaos" at all. It does raise some points about following procedures, but nowhere is there any reference to a chaotic situation or panicked pax/crew.

I would hope that Jetstar take actions to have this article corrected, as its a misrepresentation of what really happened (although I don't expect anything less from a newspaper article about aviation).

And for the record, I don't work for Jet*.

[ditzyboy]

Sinala1 -
I have already written to SMH who also published the same tripe. I also contacted the FAAA and asked them to respond to the media.

Such sloppy journalism is an insult and dis-service to the flight attendants involved and the cabin crew community as a whole.

Neville -
Can I just mention too that I found Jetstar Cabin Crew recurrent training to be completely over the top. It just doesn't wash Neville when you say that training is "under done", for cabin crew at least. What would I know? I only worked there... Did you even read the report?

[sinala1]

I too have emailed the AAP directly to register my disgust at their lack of journalistic integrity.

I had to laugh though when I read the final line of the article:

Jetstar had made changes to passenger training since the incident.

I was unaware that Jetstar trained passengers - I hope my airline starts this training for passengers sometime soon too!!! :E

[neville_nobody]

Ditzy Boy

Yep I have read the whole incident report and my comments where on the crew as a whole was not having a crack at the flight attendants specifically. However if your training is so great why did they get so many things wrong?? Again the crew as a whole not just flighties?? Part of the answer here especially for ground crew, is lack of training which has been address by the company.

My point is that Jetstar is a major carrier in this country and it has taken a evacuation before they have considered training their ground staff for such an event. Now imagine if this was a A330 in a foreign country with 300 POB not just 21?? When it comes to emergencies in aviaton you cannot afford to screw up.

[desmotronic]

The atsb appear to go through any incident like a dose of salts except when its qantas. I mean the last serious qantas incident not long ago was a 737 nearly hitting the ground and then proceeding to canberra below msa... but the apologetic atsb report put that down to fatigue, circadian rhythmns and it being a little bit too hot on the flight deck. Yet these guys get reamed for talking on the flight deck, seems like a double standard to me.

[ditzyboy]

When it comes to emergencies in aviaton you cannot afford to screw up.

Totally agree :ok: However the mistakes made by cabin crew have completely plausible explainations. Similar mistakes happen in almost ALL evacuations. Lesson are learnt with the view to make things safer for everyone including other airlines.

As for R1 not being armed correctly. Yeh the company could have made the slight difference in floor brackets known to cabin crew. Not the fault of the crew per se. Regardless of the floor brackets or how a door is armed these mistakes happen regularily throughout the world in non-emergency situations for a number of reasons.

I stand by my view that the cabin crew in this instance showed excellent situational awareness during the evacuation. The R1 flight attendant immediately redirected pax without panicking. The OWA flight attendant was aware of what was happening at both ends of the aircraft.

The CM risked being ejected from the aircraft herself in preventing the pax from jumping before the slide inflated. Due to door design (similar to 737) there is no way you can totally block an exit without power assist while opening it. The Door 2 flight attendant risked possible injury by venturing into the dark tailcone to assess the exit could be used safely to get the pax out quicker.

The above is hardly indicitive of poor training. I reaffirm that in my view the Jetstar recurrent training is completely over the top if anything.

As for the ground staff being trained I wonder what the standard is out there for aussie airlines to make their ground staff aware of their responsibilities during an evacuation on the stand. Is there any standard? Do some airlines train ground staff in this area and others not?

[flyingins]

Interesting that the ATSB report constantly compares Jetstar's evacuation at Hobart to the evacuation of Qantas's VH-OJU on the gate at Sydney in 2003.

Both technically successful outcomes but in both instances MANY mistakes were made - by ground and flight-crew alike.

I suppose the motto of this comparison is simple. Passenger evacuations are NEVER a precise procedure. The smartest way to approach their analysis is to acknowledge and learn from errors made in their execution and acknowledge that if everyone survived then the manoeuvre WAS a success.

Not perfect but certainly functional.