Slide deployment in Schipol
 

The Air Astana flight from Atyrau this morning managed to deploy the forward emergency escape slide this morning ar Schipol. I assume that it would be something as simple as forgetting to set the doors to manual to set it off when the door was opened?

Will leave that to those that know. All I know is that my daughter was told in training that if they ever make that mistake, walk off the plane, hand in your airside pass and go home to wait for your P45!!!

Even at home base its at least 4 hours to repack or whatever, more if away from base, and its not a cheap exercise. On an equally (more) serious note people on the loading ramps have been seriously injured, or killed by such errors.

Apparently simple maybe, but a very important procedure.................

I hope for the cabin crew's sake that it was a system fault rather than finger trouble. I'm sure it is very dangerous for anybody standing in front of it when it goes pop.

Being a cabin crew manager/trainer it is quite simple to 'blow' a slide if the crew aren't paying attention to what they are meant to be doing, and having had to retrain 2 crew members recently who did it wasn't particularly nice, however, as they'll tell you, you'll only ever 'blow' it the once.:O

The main thing is, that nobody got hurt.

Nesboy

Whilst I understand that they wish to convey the importance of adhering to saftey/standard operating procedures, to be honest, imho, that approach of threatening instant dismissal does not benefit anyone, and actually reduces safety procedures.

What it does is result in people not reporting safety issues and procedures that could result in benefits for everyone and puts the fear of God into new recruits so much that they may be frightened and actually make mistakes:=

got a lady in our company who blowed 2 slides...
And she became a trainer.

Guess she has good "friends"

not suprising she got promoted if she blew twice on the slides.

Probably got a raise as well ?

Yes think you are right and in fact I suspect that in reality if a CC did make such a mistake it would not necesarily mean instant dismisal. The training for my daughter was very much about report every safety issue - example any ice spotted on plane if CC senior wont listen go direct to pilot. Point (I think!) I was making is that a lot of CC work whilst it may appear mundane is actually very important to overall safety.

I remember the No.2 cabin staff trainer, who was line checking the cabin staff, offered to open 1 Door Left on arrival at YYZ.

She blew the slide inside the jetway. The meeters and greeters outside had to run for their lives!

I also remember taxiing out at LGW one day and seeing a blown overwing slide on a Continental DC-10. Now that structure would take more than 4 hours to re-pack.

I would guess that a slide gets blown just about every day of the year somewhere in the world.

Back in the early 90's the L1 door slide was blown on Air Force One with Clinton on board. The steward originally claimed he did nothing wrong and later 'fessed up.

I watched an A310 R1 slide deploy into a catering truck in OSL years ago. Fortunately, the caterer was knocked back into the elevated truck and was not hurt. After descent though weather and a winter crossing the F/A said she couldn't get the door handle to move. The FO offered to take care of it, somehow rearmed the door and pulled.

Last time I saw a post like #7, it got zapped in little time.
If the same happens, these are jems lost forever :oh:

Its simple really......NEVER allow the CC to open the door from the inside.....except when the evacuation alrarm is sounded.......worked well with a firm I worked for......All doors can be opened from the outside and will (I know except the 737) disarm the slide if it is inadvertantly left armed...

....not sure if that would work in every airport, especially when the engineers are low on numbers and turn-around times are essential for a smooth flowing operation.

Blowing a slide is part and parcel of the job of cabin crew. If you get through your career without scaring yourself at least once by almost deploying a slide then you are very lucky.

Nesboy

Remember the good old 727 when I was a First Officer and the girl at 1L blew a slide after pushback, cause a door strap was stucking in. She was near to tears but the ultra cool captain calmed her down.

Later on he filed a report for the beancounters, saying...

"After pushback door 1L had to be opened. Lever was in position "Flight", slide worked fine as per design."

:D:D:D

we once had a slide deploy into the galley inflight due to hardware issues. burried a steward beneath. had to cut the slide to deflate. minor injuries.

I was a dispatcher in a former life, all airlines I dealt with it was a cabin crew duty to open the pax door, except for Delta, where it was a knock on the door, a confirmed thumbs up, then operate the door from the outside. Any advantages / disadvantages to this way of operating?

The other common cause used to be the cleaners opening a door that had been left armed.

door operation
 

The latest ground handling safety recommendations are that all doors only be operated from outside (except in emergency). This is because it ensures that equipment is in place before door is opened and reduced opportunity of crew or pax falling out.
I still would not like to be on the jetway when a slide blew though.

If you open the door from outside (at least on a 'bus) the door mechanism disarms the slide, even if it is armed to start with.

Careful opening those 737 doors from outside!
http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f6...ules/737dr.jpg