Rex emergency evacuation Melbourne
 

Jeez!

https://7news.com.au/news/melbourne/...port-c-6343594

I don’t know the Saab all to well, but is that “ jump” just the emergency exit?

Pretty crowded SAAB if 43 people evacuated. Seems like an easy typo, but given the medias previous form maybe just trying to make it more dramatic than it was.

kika

Jumped “more than a metre”! It’s a wonder anyone survived.

Indeed, max pax number for SAAB 340B is 34 not 43.

Couldn’t have been a 737 as many flights yesterday only went out with 10 or less bodies. Definitely sounds like a Saab load.

Flight was to King island so definitely not 737

“I was sitting there enjoying the pre-flight safety talk and a bit of smoke came out of one of the motors, it didn’t look exactly normal,” passenger Ryan Morris told Sunrise.

“The pilot came out in a bit of a rush and we got told to evacuate.

“I was a little bit stressful, but they did a great job getting everybody out one piece, it was great.

Where do they find these animated passengers?

That 43 pax was likely a dyslexic 34.

Yeah, that sounds more like a Bonza B737MAX route...

Well, I've had a total knee replacement, so a jump from that height would be pretty serious for me. In fact, to have a random sample of 34 people jump from that height with none suffering injury is better than I would have thought statistically likely. Well done.

If your info is correct, would appear the 73 op is not hitting the targets expected.

Getting a tad off topic but a few issues in Rex land at the moment.

They raised airfares. Now priced above Virgin and on par with Qantas. I don’t think that is a wise move for a number of reasons. I recall Sharpie being very vocal about pricing his business like Jetstar, with Qantas service. Now they are trying to do the latter with pricing also.

Secondly OOL is seriously underperforming, to the point that they might as well exit the market. Serious issues at hand if your only pulling 5-20 bodies per flight, and Virgin is filling a whopping 14 flights a day consistently. Virgin are currently the biggest player out of the Gold Coast to Melbourne and Sydney.

You can tell when the REX 737 flights are because Virgin will suddenly have a very cheap fare compared to the rest of the day. I was going to fly REX but backed off when none of the seats was occupied.

Excess fuel feed before light-off during engine start can cause a flame throw with smoke or just smoke without the flames from the exhaust at the rear of the engine. Normally a non event.

And a not quite so 'emergency' similar event in Roma….
Brisbane Times

In a similar incident in south-west Queensland on Wednesday, passengers on board a flight from Roma Airport to Brisbane were told to disembark after smoke was spotted coming out of the plane’s left engine.

Wonder if it was the same plane, was the same side.

Looks like -ZRK in Melbourne, -ZRI in Roma.

Neither of which seem to have made it to the ATSB reports page (as of posting). I wonder why?

Earlier in the year Qlink couldn’t get the gear down on two consecutive RPT sectors in South Australia, same aircraft. That didn’t get a look in either.

My point being that not everything gets investigated at any airline. The ZRK issue is now on ATSB page however.

Slightly off topic…but is this correct?

If Rex are now pricing themselves above Virgin, then they are going to really struggle.

I also thought OOL was one of their better markets loads wise. That should also ring major warning bells moving into school holidays.

I’ve been amazed at the number of 73s that do seem to be parked around airports - especially when they only have 6 frames, as well as the time between turn arounds. There was a 73 that was on a 2 hour turn in MEL the other day at 8:30 in the morning.

Looks like more of their pilots are leaving to go back to Virgin. And now that QF are hiring again, they will start to lose SAAB crew too

And for something more relevant, given perhaps the maintenance issues this week on the prop fleet - how are the ATRs looking as a fleet replacement?

Having operated ATR, I’d pick Q400 everytime. Not as expensive to lease, buy or maintain and much quicker, so more sectors per day.

there wont be any money left for the ATRs

I wonder if the event was accompanied by an Engine Fire and/or Tailpipe hot warning?

4 Minutes to Evacuate a SAAB?!?
 

How the hell does it take 4 minutes to evacuate a commuter turboprop, on the ground, in almost-perfect conditions? Correct me if I'm wrong (often am according to the KRviatrix...) but once the skipper orders an evacuation it is not up to them to direct which exits to use - and in this case, given the crew presumed an actual engine fire (firing the bottles, EMER EVAC, etc...), and commanded an evacuation and as a result of the "Use R1 only" command it took 4 minutes to evacuate 25POB!?!?

KRviator.

I suspect due to the distance from the R1 door sill to the ground, each passenger had to sit down on the sill and lower themselves to the ground. I doubt there was a jumping castle in position to catch them.
If there was fire licking at their heels, I'm sure they would have jumped faster! :E

Monkey See Monkey Do,
Not the first time ground staff had pulled the GND PWR during a start, happened to me twice.
Second hand training was always the norm for GND OPS.

4 Minitues!!! Extra long time for a evac.

That's exactly what I'm thinking, Capt but....My question is once the Evac command is given, it's not up to the skipper to decide which exits to use or how to abandon the aircraft. Or is it in Rex?

If there's fire/smoke/obstruction the CC are trained to not open that exit and direct people to another usable one. In this case, the skipper directed R1 only and as a result, 25POB took longer to get out of a SAAB 340 in perfect conditions than 170 people did to evacuate a well-and-truly burning 777 following an engine letting go and the crew leaving the [good] engine running for 45 seconds after commanding the evacuation rendering some slides unusabe!

As regards the incident itself though, ISTR we had a similar issue with one of the Army KingAirs at Brissy many years ago whereby a cloud of unburnt fuel spat out the back and ignited with someone promptly calling RFFS...

From what I can see the Flight crew initially did exactly what they were trained to do. Flame and smoke during an interrupted start can occur but does not necessarily mean an engine fire.

Was there a Fire Warning or Tailpipe hot warning in the Flight deck? The excerpt above does not say.

Was the crew diverted from a correct course of action (continue to motor the affected engine) by confusion from ground personnel?

Australian airlaw gives the pilot in command powers to do whatever is nessecary in an emergency to ensure the safest outcome, that applies to any operator. If you wish to alter an Evac procedure as you see a threat the cabin crew may not then it's your perogative. In doing so you then may have to explain why afterwards, and take responsibility for any problems as a result, thats the risk. The cabin crew are also trained to only evacuate through usable exits, but what if theres a huge fuel spill under the left wing near hot brakes from a reject not visible from the overwing exits.

The QLink brake fire was also called an evacuation, with an actual brake fire ocurring yet it was clear passengers were just disembarking with carryon through the L1 with not much urgency. Not saying it should be a mad rush with all exits in use, but a pretty similar situation.

There were no overtemp warnings of any kind. The website text doesn't make that clear, but the PDF report does. And had the marshaller not panicked, the crew would have motored #1, ITT/EGT would have come down and the flight would have left on time.Seems to be the case...Again, from the PDF report:
You can play "what if's" till the cows come home, but, to use your example of the QF brake fire, a brake fire, while it can be visually quite spectacular (same as this incident, I guess) does not typically require an emergency evacuation. Nonetheless, I agree in principle with the point you make, however giving such a direction doesn't permit you to place your crew and passengers at risk, which you do by default if you order the prohibition on using otherwise safe & serviceable exits.

As PIC, you don't know what is going on back there, once you've made the ultimate decision to blow the slides (or jump in the case of the SAAB), that's the end of your authority. You don't get to say "Oh, we genuinely believe we're on fire and need an emergency evacuation, but only use 1 of the available exits", particularly having regard to certification requirements that say everyone should be off within 90 seconds once the command is given.

In this case, it did work out, simply due to the fact there was nothing actually wrong with the aircraft, the marshaller just shat himself when he saw the tailpipe fire, but next time...? I leave it to the reader to decide the size of the lawyers feeding frenzy if such a direction were to be given and someone was injured or killed trying to comply with it - because, remember, under Australian law, it is an offence not to follow the direction of the PIC, when such a direction is given to ensure the safety of the aircraft, those onboard or those on the ground. Strict liability and all that...

Actually the PIC has radio comms with ATC, possibly ground staff and fire marshals at the primary airports. So the PIC will have inputs from all angles as to whats going on outside if done properly. And yes the QF brake fire combined with whatever else could have been going on could have become much worse very quickly under the right circumstance, after all the fire is located under the engines and wings, would not take much for it to spread very quickly with an ignition source that takes possibly hours to cool down. I noticed the QF aircraft did have the R1 exit open, but all passengers were exiting through L1 with bags, so a confusing picture to say the least.

If the QF situation had occurred at an outport without nearby fire service there may have been a lot more damage. There was a significant amount of flame coming from the tyres before the FO sprayed it, the BCF only had a few squirts left with the right wheels smoldering as well.

If the situation is confusing I say get all the info you can before moving, however if unsure I don't think the SAAB did anything wrong once they wanted to empty the aircraft as the FA could quite easily have ordered other exits used as well should the situation deteriorate. Very different to the QF 330 on the stand where pax were actually exposed to hazardous fumes.

Evacuations are fluid and you should be able to adjust to the situation with what little control you have.

Evacuations are exactly playing with "what ifs" as you are expecting things might get to the stage somebody is hurt, after all you evacuated for a safety based "what if". Almost every evacuation is going to be slightly different so there's no procedure that covers all outcomes. We have standard Evac procedures for the worst case scenario where you need to get everybody off ASAP, but that may not be the case in 90% of Evacs. The Bangkok golf adventure proved the standard procedures were flawed to rely on the Captain at all for Evac notice and procedures changed and so they will keep changing as we find new holes in the cheese.

One thing with both the QF incidents I mention is that both crews were not following the procedure for the relevant operation, if they did an Evac would not have been warranted. The 330 should have not been using the APU and the Dash 8 is yet to come out but sounds like it should not have taxied to the terminal under power. We all make mistakes, this situation just sounds like another one.


At what point would you evacuate? When it breaks in through the window or use forrward exits while it's chewing the tail?

Would you please outline the procedures the crews failed to follow in the examples you quoted.

Fumes in the cabin checklist, 1 shut down APU. That's my abbreviated take on it, the ATSB report has more to say about it. The fumes started under tow into the terminal from the airintake flow coming from where the hydraulic fluid was streaming.

As for the Dash 8 apparently it should have been taken under tow after landing due to the problem requiring power against brakes.

Further to what I said above this is the ATSBs take on the A330 Evac commands;

Whilst the ATSB did not say the Captain should have specified which exits to use it states that the Captain has the option to vary an Evac at their discretion and QF procedures allow for that. In this case the choice that FAs made not to use specific exits for fear of suspected fire.

https://www.atsb.gov.au/publications...ir/ao-2019-073

None of what I'm saying is criticising the crew as they are the ones facing the situation on the day and making quick decisions on the spot. Just highlighting everybody is making small errors in these events and no one is perfect.

4 minutes would have been because the average Rex customer is over the age of 60 heading to a capital city for medical treatment.

Had an engine failure at V1 when the turbine decided to spit everything out the back end, you won't find a report on the ATSB site, was a first for the aircraft type in Australia.