BA0058 Ground Evacuation - Cape Town
 

Mate has just been evacuated (slides not deployed) from BA0058 in Cape Town, following electrical failure. Not getting home tonight, apparently...


He's very complimentary about the professionalism of the crew, getting everyone off a darkened aircraft.

Planning to depart at 08.00 tomorrow morning.

Good point, poorly worded! It was (apparently) while they were still on the stand.

So they just disembarked… ?

Nothing "emergency" involved… ?

Well, they were told to get out as quickly as they could, leaving all belongings behind. In the dark.


I'd call that - at the very least - not routine.

A precautionary rapid disembarkation.

What a/c type?

At my former outfit the call was "deplane".....not an evacuation...

747-436, full load (about 4 empty seats).

If the slides were not deployed it's not an evacuation. It's disembarkation without cabin lighting. A non event. :{

If you're sat, squeezed rather, into your cattle class seat when the lights suddenly go out, and the crew is urging you to evacuate the aircraft quick as you can, leave your belongings behind, it may not be an emergency as per the book definition if the slides are not popped. But a 'non event'? Not sure about that.

Did the emergency lighting illuminate?
Only reason I can think of for not taking baggage is that it's dark up at o/h locker level and crew was concerned about possibility of mishandled baggage banging heads and small children.

Occasionally, the only way of rebooting errant computers on the ground is to de-power the whole aircraft and then power up again. No big deal - isn't there a joke about making a kissing sound and smacking an annoying bloke on the face? :E

Perhaps the APU was off and the GPU tripped which happens a lot.