Pax Evacuation Commands
 

After reading the thread on the BA 038 accident in LHR I am prompted to ask what form of words you use in the event of ordering a passenger evacuation. I did mention it in the thread but it got lost in the hullabaloo and prompted almost no reaction. So now that the drama has subsided somewhat, I would like to know what you use.

My present company use,

'This is an emergency, Unfasten your seat belts and evacuate using all available exits.'

This is almost the worst example of evacuation command possible. It uses words that will be unfamiliar to many passengers. Unfasten is not an easily learned English word, as are, evacuate and available.

Evacuation studies carried out since the very survivable Manchester BA B737-200 fire in 1985 have some interesting results. Cranfield University, using a Trident fuselage and more recently a B737 Cabin Simulator along with a two deck wide-body simulator have shown that passengers, me amongst them on the Trident, behave in many and varied ways to such a situation. At one extreme, a number will be moving towards the exits even before the aircraft has come to rest, others will sit and do nothing no matter how hard you shout at them.

The command from the cockpit found to be the most use in our multi-lingual era is

'Open your seat belts and get out.'

Any other form of words were all found to be confusing and less well understood. If your company uses anything other than this form of words, I would be interested to hear them.

We use 'Evacuate Left/Right/Both Exits' X2.

As a cargo operation we hardly ever carry civilians.

From the Flight Deck

" This is an Emergency, Evacuate, Evacuate"

..we can also add extra information if a hazard exists, e.g. .."Hazard on the Left"...also we trigger the Evacuation alarm.

This should then trigger the Cabin crew to unstrap and start shouting:
"unfasten your seat belt - come this way"...., and go into their door drills.

I gather it get's people's attention..

Jump, follow me...
 

What I am concerned about, is languages.
xxx
English is language of aviation... yes... but is it of your passengers...?
There are people that have no clue as to what "evacuate left/right" means.
xxx
Most situations, this does not apply - but...
If you fly groups of people, pilgrims from Indonesia, refugees from Rwanda, their language is necessary.
It should be required that at least one local "cabin service representative" assist for languages.
xxx
In my career, I have seen people not knowing how to handle airstairs, to get to the airplane.
They can recognize a seat. But no clue as to what a seat belt is for. Undoing it is a major task.
Let us talk about what a toilet is for, "press here to flush" (you make me laugh).
xxx
Cabin crews - my advice: demonstrate if you crash and burn, God forbid.
Evacuation - be the first to jump down the slide - they might do same and follow you...
If they see flames on one side, they might have the idea that it is better to get the out on the other.
xxx
Every airplane leased for operations overseas should have placards in local language.
English might be worthless.
Brush up on your Mongolian, Swahili, Lingala or Tibetan...
Or hire a local for $20.oo per flight, food and bed, to translate.
And roasting a goat in the aisle is better with Halon bottle at hand.
xxx
:)
Happy contrails

Assuming an evacuation initiated from the flight deck;

"This is the Captain. Evacuate! Evacuate!"

No further instructions to the crew. It is up to them to select the most appropriate exit and control the pax given what they can observe immediately outside the doors.

I always view the evacuation command as an instruction to the crew, not the pax. The pax will soon get the general idea of what is required once the cabin crew go into their drills, regardless of their grasp of English or otherwise.

Well, BelArgUSA,

We are clever enough to adopt our SOP to the environment we operate in. The pax we carry will all understand our evacuation command.

While we are on the subject, your signature xxx line separator does not exactly make reading your posts easy on the eye.

Any command to "open your seat belts", preceding a command to "get out", "evacuate" or suchlike is totally unnecessary and wastes time. If a passenger can hear and understand the command "get out" or "evacuate", he/she does NOT need to be advised to undo the seatbelt to accomplish that.

So the issue is having a simple and universally understood command to "get out now", and that is probably it. It's too late to instruct people how to do this, which exit to use, etc.

My first thought (I did see the original post) was follow me and I see that in essence several posters have alluded to this.

However taking up the theme of English as a foreign language I identified a case many years ago where the emergency brief was given to a foreign national in English. Given the status of the passenger it was highly unlikely that he would admit to needing to ask a question when the briefer finished with "Any questions?"

I wrote out the brief, very similar to that that FAs use now, and had it translated into the passenger's language.

Three months later the aircraft crashed and the passenger evacuated safely with no problems.

And the lesson as BelArgUSA says And prepare your briefs in all the languages of your passengers.

Admittedly many will have English or French but may be unable to read. They may also not understand the technical terms such as 'seat-belt' 'seat-upright' or 'press to flush' hence the need for a local CSR.

Experience has shown that many passengers forget they are strapped in, thus valuable second(s) are lost before they reach for the clasp. As mentioned above, some leap instantly - some freeze and stop thinking.

A short command is best: "Emergency, open seatbelt and get out."

Regardless of if the passengers know it's an emergency or not (I guess more likely than not, especially if there is smoke of fire), then "Undo your seatbelt, get out!!!" is maybe best for all circumstances & languages??

Short & salient is best. I think "Follow me!" should be adopted. :}

I agree with that tinny but you'll have to add some sage advice to the safety briefing, such as... "Do not wait for a repeat of this instruction as my voice is unlikely to carry from outside the aircraft." :}

When under high stress (such as being involved in an aircraft accident) people often need an attention grabber before they can heed instructions. If my previous instruction goes unnoticed I suggest you should follow up with "Hey! You in there!"

You may have to use a very, very loud clear voice if you are already some distance away.

"EXIT AIRCRAFT, LEFT SIDE (or as appropriate)!!"

It seems to me that there's only so much that can be done in an emergency situation. I've read enough prang reports to know that there will always be at least a few people who will not absorb any pre-departure safety briefing. Some of these will readily absorb a similar, albeit more brief, safety broadcast when the ass is on the line, but the stats suggest that - despite the urgency of an emergency safety broadcast - there will still be people who react the wrong way or don't react at all.

There's only so much that we can do to help them to help themselves. I've gone through that - thankfully only ever in theory - but am pretty sure that I wouldn't risk my own life too much to save anyone who didn't absorb the original briefing!

(There, that should start something! :E )

So that would be on the left for pax making their way towards the front doors would it? What about those heading back down the isle towards the rear doors?:rolleyes:

And how just does telling a passenger to use an 'available' exit work? Do they really need to be told to use 'all available exits'? I think not.

"Undo your seatbelts and get out! Undo your seatbelts and get out!" Seems reasonable to me.:ok:

PP

Just a question from a bloke that works on the ground.....

Why is there a need to tell PAX to undo their seatbelts?

Can anybody actually leave an a/c with a seatbelt still fastened? I mean sure they could try but they may get the row of seats that is belted to their ar*ses stuck in the door.

Beer n Tabs,

Read OzExpat's post (#16). People often forget to undo the belt, losing seconds. Meanwhile the bloke in the window seat has trampled them, of has had the PSU collapse on them, and they're both trapped.

However I agree with the comment that the F/D command is aimed at the C/C - who are then in the best situation to assess the immediate dangers involved in getting the SLF out one side or the other, or which doors or slides aren't working (possibly due to someone not listening and puncturing it with their high heels), etc.

Cheers TailDragger67 :ok:, Oh and OzExpat :ok:

I can picture the scene though......some poor pax sitting there still belted to a seat rocking back and forward with a confused vacant look wondering why their legs arent working, until some blurts out 'UNDO YER SEATBELT'

Have a good day.