U/S emergency exits
 

A friend of mine told me about the following, and I tend to agree that it's slightly dodgy. Just windering about what others think.

What happend:
JQ international A330 service. Friend was told prior to boarding that he would be unable to sit with his travel comanion for the flight as the back half of the aircraft had been blocked, and was re-allocated a seat. He was unphased by this as he assumed that it was for possible weight and balance issue and figured they would do the usual "you can move about after the seatbelt sign is off" thing.

When they boarded however he noticed that the seats at the back of the aircraft had been roped off. He asked one of the flight attendents (who had trouble understanding the nature of his question due to an apparent language barrier) why the seats had been roped off. She simply replied words to the effect of "Its okay, its safe." Another passenger overheard and had a little more info to offer and stated that at least one of the rear emergency exits was U/S.

Both myself and my friend understand why the seats were roped off (I imagine a requirement of the MEL?) and don't have a problem with it. My friend was a little annoyed though because at no time were passengers briefed by crew that the exit(s) weren't available. His theory being that in the event of an evac. with the crew disabled, the U/S exits might be the nearest, least obstructed exits available and pax. might head in their direction only to find they won't open/deploy.

My question: Do you (plural) think that this kind of unservicability be made known to pax. I am aware that exits won't be illuminated etc. if they are U/S but I think my friend has a point.

P.S. I am not advocating that all PU's be made known to passengers, but if its fairly important to a safe evac, might be good idea.

Hey

You might find this thread interesting...

http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?t=279645

Not dodgy at all. But explaining the problem to pax is vital.

Cheers

Tiger.

i'd sure like to know which door was U/S so incase of emergency, i would head for the other door...just a peace of mind, rather than fumbling around with a U/S door....
but of course, i get upset when they seat 60 y/o grannies in over wing emergency exits who "are willing to help" and "have read the safety breifing card".... sure, but can they lift a 20kg door and throw it outwards if they needed to, when u just witnessed them having trouble putting their carry on luggage in the overhead compartment :ugh:

At least here in Australia U/S exits are roped off and serviceable ones are clear. I have personally witnessed, and had to fly on aircraft, where the emergency exit space has been the place to stow excess carry on baggage. I mean a suitcase larger than the person who "carried' it on, as well as the other 150 pax with their carry on. Predominant in Africa, some Middle East and common on the Sub Continent.

From memory if you block an exit or it becomes u/s then you have to cover up or remove the exit logo, AND you have to brief the pax that the exit is not in use. However you could argue that if they roped off the back half of the aircraft and then pointed where all the serviceable exits are then that could satisfy the authorities. I'm sure CASA would be interested to hear this story none the less.

I agree that the pax should be told during the safety briefing. But I also think that by telling the pax, that something like this will end up in the press with the same near death headlines. If the pax are not told, in the event of an in flight emergency I would hope they are told when they are briefed before the landing/ditching.

Find it remarkable that you are able to MEL an emergency exit in the first place.......a bit of Murphys law here....when the **** hits the fan,where will most pax try to exit....just a thought:(


Checked my own Ops Manual and MEL .....cant go!! door has to work or she,s grounded.....now thats an MEL I like...PB

I love you blokes that think the Pax listen to the briefing or anything the Purser says except when it comes to tucker selection....:ugh:....you blokes need to get out a little more....what a crack-up:}:}:}

It certainly is not that unusual to operate this way under an MEL, whether or not it is a good idea is debatable, but it is legal.

I have even had it once on an International flight operated by an Australian registered aircraft, there were no spares available so the aircraft just operated a couple of flights under the MEL with the appropriate number of seats blocked off.

a simlar situation occured on a SJ A320 a little while back afta the front right door was not disarmed on arrival into PMR. Thus when the turnaround cleaner went to open the door the emergency slide was activated. Thus the flight still went ahead with the 1st 12 rows ropped off. From memory for safety reasons the aircraft must be evacuted within 90secs with only 50% of the useable exitsavailible

isolating "unusable" emergency exits.
 

Not sure about the psychological effect upon the passengers/some passengers of roping off/partitioning, re-sign-posting etc an emergency exit just because the slide is a dud or the girt bar is broke. If that hatch will open and allow a getaway from a burning fuselage, albeit after a bit of a gravity-drop, then I'd like to know that to be a fact also.

Burning to death inside and unable to make it over or past others, just because some rule-book bound pillock decides that a perfectly good escape hatch is "unusable", would seem to me to be lacking in prescience. Next thing we'll find that they are rendering such exit-ways actually unopenable, just because the chute repack is out of date.

I don't know the details of this case in question, however you will probably find it is similar to the one I mentioned on an International flight.

The one I was involved in, there was no major problem just the slide bottle on one door was a little under the minimum pressure.

It could not be rectified quickly, so in order to operate the flights on time and as there was not a high passenger load on the flights, the Company elected to go under the MEL with seats roped off.