Chemtrails. Blame the CIA. And the French of course :}

Tandemrotor

My wife is pretty sensible and well travelled, so I am comfortable to accept her assertion as I described it (i.e. either there was no PA or it was inaudible). She was seated in row 36, so not in a remote corner, or whatever, in terms of being able to hear any PA. She mentioned no other form of audible alarm. Thanks to the very helpful BA ground staff at PHX, she's back in the UK now, so I cannot easily ask her.

I think I already mentioned she only knew an evac was happening because she was two rows ahead of Door 3 (or 2) Right and so could see it starting.

Rheum101 made a valid comment that some kind of "holding" PA may have been better than nothing at all, though of course I recognise this could actually generate panic in other areas of the aircraft where passengers may not actually be aware of any issues.

I don't think I was knocking the BA SOPs or CC - hey, everybody got off thank goodness and pretty quickly (once it started, that is).

However, I'm quite surprised nobody has picked up on the fifteen or twenty minutes all the passengers spent standing around out on the ramp comparatively close to the aircraft, watching the fire crews arrive and investigate?? They were there long enough for ground staff to rustle up and start distributing cases of bottled water and this will certainly have taken quite a few minutes, for sure! This did not sound very bright to me, in light of the likely blast area of that (obviously profoundly worse) China Airlines flight 120 incident.

I'm not certain if the air-side stand number corresponds with the in-terminal gate number but, if you are familiar with KPHX and terminal gate number B25 (the one normally used by BA), you will know the BA pax could not have strayed very far from the aircraft without risking infringing the nearby taxiways C and R. Taxiway R is an important route to 25R, used by many of the regional US Air Terminal Four departures at this time of the evening (and I note this area is noted as non-vis from the tower).

Oh and just where are you going to rustle up 300+ bottles of water at that time of night, in 30 mins??

Everyone (apart from positionandhold and including rainboe, which DOES surprise me...) appears to be missing the core issue:

Lack of clear information.

As in "If they didn't hear it, you didn't say it"

In a situation like this, early on in the piece a crew member HAS to say something along the lines of

"We have a problem with the cabin ventilation, there's no danger, we're checking and we'll let you know what's happening"

I've experienced the whole bandwidth - from waiting AN HOUR after you've watched them tow the aircraft away from the terminal before being informed of a delay to a running commentary of which screw they were tightening at that very instant (Not quite, but not far off...)
Somewhere in between would be good, and if I can smell smoke in the cabin and people are moving away from the source, I want to to know NOW.

If Mrs P&H didn't hear cabin PAs, then - to all intents and purposes - there weren't any.

Well, IF you knew anything about the PHX airport, you might not ask such an obtuse question.

frangatan

I think that you might have misunderstood positionand holds statement;

The ground staff did manage to locate 300 bottles of water.

Dave

positionandhold, the proximity of other stands and taxiways wouldn't so much have been an issue, I'm sure ATC would have stopped everything.
Re the standing around on the ramp etc, people are quick to criticise, but don't think of the situation practically... How do they get staff there asap to look after pax when they may be busy and hard to reach immediately. Where do they get the bottles of water from for that amount of people. If the staff have no information (as BA may not know what to do immediately) then they would be lying to pax if they told them something etc etc.. put yourself on the other side. If I were paxing and ended up in a similar situation, I know I'd just have to be patient, and glad that I got out of the aircraft in the first place!

That actually would have put her at doors 4 directly in front of the galley with a toilet and galley unit blocking her from the crew. IMHO, she was perhaps in the best place as she probably would have been one of the first off assuming she remembered that her nearest exit was behind her!

It is BA procedure that when an evacuation is initiated that the "evac alarm" be sounded however this would only be a brief alarm as the crew are instructed to immediately silence the horn at their respective door in order for the passengers to be able to hear their commands! It is a loud alarm that sounds much like your typical domestic fire alarm but with a lot of people shouting it would be possible not to hear it!

As for no PA's, well I can assure you that there were probably plenty of "ding dongs" going on in the galley in the minutes prior to the evacuation being called as crew and flight deck discussed the situation via the interphones.

Once again to the crew...You did us proud!!! :D


Positionand Hold......also big :D:D:D to your wife for getting back onboard and completing the journey! I suppose its a bit like riding a horse, when you first fall off you just have to get back up and keep going!

Exactly.

Plenty of "ding dongs"

Which makes people think that something must be up, but - not having a ding-dong dictionary to hand - were unable to determine exactly what.

Very clear communication....

RevMan2

There may well be lessons to learn from this event - but as you weren't there on the scene, and all we have to go on is secondary information which may/may not bear any resemblance to what actually happened - it's a tad early to start accusing the crew of failing to communicate properly what was or wasn't going on.

If you bothered to read the thread properly, THERE is a first hand account as relayed by position & hold. It's a report as she saw it, not as is all too usual on here by posters who throw up every conceivable (and at times some pretty bizarre ideas) as to what really occurred.
People just seem more anxious about getting their comment into a thread instead of ensuring it is contributing to the thread and not detracting.
Whilst there appeared to be a slow start, once the evacuation commenced, it was all handled very professionally, with credit due to all aboard and the ground crew. What appears to be in need of improvement is for better communication, which no doubt will be addressed by the appropriate authorities. It should also address the continued mindless reaction of some pax to bring their luggage when ordered to evacuate, as happened previously in the Hudson ditching.
Let's just be glad that all got off safely.

I think you have to be careful about prioritizing passenger communications when there are all sorts of other things happening.

Thinking about what might have been going on the flight deck: ATC need to be notified and kept in the loop, the CSD and possibly other crew members close to the action would be on the interphone, the pushback crew/engineer would need to be told what to do. System status would need monitoring, checklists could need to be actioned. When it started looking like an evacuation might be necessary, I'm sure there was some serious discussion and an agreement reached as it is NOT something you order lightly, especially in something the size of a 747.

Yes, in the ideal world, there would be a calm voice explaining what was happening all the time. I suspect that in this incident they were just too busy or regarded it as low priority. After all, if the situation warrants an evacuation you'll get one; if it doesn't, you won't.

One of our trainers had someone do a PA in the sim. recently after an engine fire on takeoff: very good PR and reassuring to the passengers... Apart from the fact they started it at 300' before shutting down the engine! You can go too far to try and please 'the cabin' - I think most people would rather get out intact than have a running commentary if they had to choose between the two...

One thing we do not lack in PHX is bottle water. There would have been a commissary truck loaded with water nearby. Go into any 7-11 or Circle K in Phoenix and buy a beverage. You will see 64 oz sizes for sale for a reason. We can drink 2 litres of fluid and never have to pee in 45 degree (c) heat.

One issue with B 25 is, since it is an international gate, it is very secure from the ramp. It would have taken 15 minutes or so to get ICE (customs) personnel to give permission to open up the rampside to get the people up the stairs into the terminal. Also, it is still over 40 degrees at departure time. The ramp surface is very hot, the low overnight in PHX this time of year is 31C (88 F). I am amazed that there were so few injuries, it shows the slides really do work well.

I bid every northern or coastal city I can in the summer. Off to YYZ tomorrow.

My Experience
 

I posted the message below on the Flyertalk forum. I believe it fills in a few blanks.


I was on this flight along with my wife and 2 sons (aged 14 and 11). I was searching the web to see if I could find a story on what was the cause of the fumes/smoke and came across this thread. I have found the comments and opinions very interesting so I thought I would take the opportunity to relay our experience. Hopefully this will answer some of the questions you all have, and no doubt raise others.

We checked in online 24 hours before the flight and got seats in 45D-G. I wanted to get seats in the first economy section (row 28-36) but could not get 4 together in the centre (sidenote - I know BA pre-allocate groups with children and EC members of a certain level can check in earlier but I can never workout why so many seats seem to be gone before check in opens).

On the day of the flight we arrived at the airport about 130 mins before departure time and proceeded to the BA check in desks. The check in line for world traveller was practically empty but the "fast bag drop" queue had about a dozen or so people in front of us. It took about 10 mins to drop the bags and we were informed that the flight was delayed about 25 mins but we would still arrive in Heathrow on time. We went and grabbed a bite to eat then went through security and got to the gate (B25 if I recall) around 7pm. There seemed to be quite a number of TSA staff in the vicinity of the gate, certainly more than I ever recall seeing at any gate in the US before). There were also some police dotted around. My wife commented that something seemed to be going on.

General boarding began around 7.15pm and being near the back our row was in the first group called. Going down the jetway there were a number of people in plain clothes with gold "law enforcement" type badges around their necks, and some TSA staff, including 1 with a sniffer dog (I estimate there were half a dozen or so of these plain clothes people on the jetway). Some passengers were stopped and questioned however we proceeded directly to the plane and our seats. On settling down the first thing I noticed was that it was quite hot on the plane and the AC was obviously not on. About 20-30 mins later the captain announced that the door was closed and we would be on our way in a couple of mins. I believe at this point all passengers were seated and the seat belt check had been done. We pushed back and the engines were turned on.

When the AC came on I turned to my wife and joked that it smelt as if someone had a bad case of diahorrea (sp?) as the smell coming through the AC was unpleasant. She had a cold and at that point could not smell anything. Within a minute or so the smell had became considerably worse and I could see a number of other passengers begin to look around the cabin and at the crew who were by now going up the ailses, sniffing and looking slightly concerned. A few minutes later the smell had increased to the point where people were beginning to cough, babies were crying and it was pretty apparent that something was wrong. By this time I was breathing into my pillow and advised my wife and children to do the same, however my wife was having difficulty breathing and she was beginning to panic. A number of people by this time had undone their seatbelts and had began to stand up. Some even moved forward in the cabin towards the front of the plane. The cabin crew from what I could see did not ask them to re-take their seats.

The following all happened within about 2-3 minutes:

The captain came on the PA and announced that they had detected an unusual odor in the cabin and that he would be shutting down the engines and we would be getting towed back to the stand and said cabin crew doors to manual. I am pretty sure at that point the AC seemed to go off but cannot be certain. Some people were still having breathing issues and a PA announcement advised passengers to use the headrest covers to breathe into. By now even more people had stood up and some were removing items from overhead bins and seatback pockets. Again some moved towards the front of the aircraft. I am not sure if it was a PA announcement but some crew member was telling people to re-take their seats. On the left ailse (looking from the rear) a guy came into the rear cabin and shouted "nobody come this way there is a fire". This created a bit of a panic amongst the passengers and most by now had stood up and were trying to get out of their seats. The captain then came on and announced " cabin crew doors to automatic" and a few seconds later "emergency evacuation, emergency evacuation, right hand side of the aircraft only". An alarm was going off and there was a whooshing sound. I grabbed my family and we headed to the exit at the rear (we had already grabbed our hand luggage when the announcement about going back to the stand was made). There was a lot of pushing and people were yelling and screaming, I looked forward and saw that only a few people were at the next exit (forward of our seats) so I directed my family to that one. Our way to the exit was held up by someone leaning back into their seat reaching into the seatback. My wife asked them what they were doing and they said they were getting a book. I yelled at them to get out the f*&%ing way. We got to the exit and the crew were yelling "jump, jump". I made sure my wife and kids were away then I jumped onto the slide. When I reached the bottom I got my family and we made our way as fast as possible away from the plane as far as possible. Some passengers were standing near the aircraft taking pictures and I shouted at one to stop being so f&%*ing stupid that the plane might be on fire.

We got about 100 yards from the plane but a runway was nearby and the other gates had planes at them so we couldn't go any further. Sirens were going on all around and lights could be seen tearing down both sides of the runway. Police arrived and they asked us to move back nearer the main crowd. I questioned why we should move back towards an aircraft that may be on fire but was told that we were standing on a live taxiway and were too near the runway. We reluctantly moved back to the edges of the crowd.

I would estimate that it appeared to take no more than 3 mins to get everybody off the plane.

Cabin crew and firemen were now coming around asking if anybody was injured or required treatment. I asked why no transport was being sent to get us out the way but no-one could answer. My wife had a couple of burns on her hand from the slide and I had burnt my elbow, otherwise we were fine.

About 20 mins later we were asked to walk back into the terminal via a door under the gate. We walked throught immigration (I joked to someone that surely we wouldn't need to fill in the waiver and customs forms again) and we walked through the bag reclaim and customs then eventually into the main terminal where we were greeted with TV camera's!

The rest was just what you would expect, chaos, with most BA groundstaff having left already. About 11pm we checked into the Crown Plaza hotel compliments of BA. We had been told that there was no information on when checked baggage would be available as the chutes were in the way of the hold access and the fire department were not allowing access. Hand luggage had been brought to the bag reclaim about 10.30pm. Speaking to a woman at the hotel who had been on the plane she said the she was seated in row 33 and that smoke had been coming out from behind her son's seat.
No flames were seen.

We had been advised to call 1-800-airways in the morning. I called about 8am and was advised we were being rebooked on UA370 to Denver the BA218 to London. My final destination was Edinburgh and I was informed that the only flights to EDI available were from London City! (£115 BA owe me for a taxi fare).

Sorry for the long winded report but I wanted to try and relay the events in as much detail as possible. A few observations:

Something was definitely going on before we boarded, with all the TSA and other badged guys and sniffer dogs about. I have travelled extensively to the US and never seen this before.

When it was apparent that the smell was not normal it took too long in my opinion before it was decided to return to the gate (about 10 mins in my estimation). People were having difficulty breathing, not bad enough to pass out, but in a confined space like a plane it was a dangerous and volatile situation.

I read the report from the passenger in row 43 who stated that a passenger opened a door on the left side of the plane - I have no idea if this happened however she appears to be stating that this was at least a 30 secs to a minute before the rest of the doors were opened. All I can say is I never heard any commotion or such like. She states that there was no official announcement - as I stated an emergency evacuation was ordered by the captain.

I am not sure of the procedures but I am sure the captain ordered doors to manual when announcing we would be going back to the stand. Then doors to automatic seconds before announcing the evac.

I am still surprised that there seemed to be no emergency procedures in place when the plane was emptied, we were all milling on the tarmac for what seemed ages. All I could think of was fire-fuel, bad combination, although I also assumed there would be some sort of safety system to stop any fire spreading to the fuel.

When we went back into the terminal we were all just hanging around the BA check in area. I cannot believe that BA/Sky Harbour don't have some sort of disaster procedure, or at least a big room where all passengers could be addressed.

Hope this fills in some of the blanks and explains why some people had hand baggage with them. (Once it was announced we were going back to the stand a lot of people near me grabbed their stuff). I am pretty sure the smell was not too bad in some parts of the plane so this may explain why some people had left their bags onboard).

It is very easy to say from outside what you would have done in this situation, all I can say is I believe I remained fairly calm although I was very concerned when the guy shouted there's a fire. Everybody reacts differently in a crisis. There was definitely a level of panic in the rear of the plane around us. Someone commented earlier in the thread that as no one had been treated for breathing difficulties there should have been no panic. All I can say is the fumes were catching in my throat and I had to breathe into my pillow. Others, including my wife, had tears from the fumes and were coughing quite badly.

All in all it was a very scary situation. The crew looked very scared and when the captain announced the evacuation there was a high level of tension in his voice.

Hopefully we will never have to go through it again!!

If you do, hopefully you'll leave your carry on baggage behind when ordered to evacuate.:rolleyes:

Appreciate your concern, sarcastic or otherwise.

FYI when we were advised that we were going back to the stand we gathered up our bags that were to hand. When the emergency evac was declared our stuff was already in hand and I didn't think it was wise to start looking for somewhere to dump it. All we had were a couple of small backpacks.

I am not a pilot (which I assume you worked out) but have flown over 300,000 miles so would describe myself as a frequent flyer, not some sort of idiot. There were a lot of scared people on this plane and the crew took far too long to come to a decision. Wouldn't it be more sensible to comment on that?

williamd, You said you were looking for information as to what happened. It sounds to me as though one of the engines has probably suffered an internal bearing failure and engine oil has found it's way via the pneumatic ducts into the air conditioning system so resulting in smoke and fumes in the cabin.

Strongly disagree, fullwings...
 

Come on. First priority is to get passengers and crew to safety. 'Notify ATC'? give me a break.

This incident seems to me to be in the grand tradition of failed communication between the cabin and the flight deck, with the result that the pilots were unaware of the seriousness of the situation (ie that the fumes were serious enough to warrant an evacuation, rather than return to stand).

The point of this sort of incident is not that it ended reasonably well, but that the same actions would have had a very poor outcome if there had been fire as well as fumes. Several minutes of delay, poor communications and indecision could have resulted in a body count.

Evacuation of a 747 is not to be taken lightly, as you say. But it should be done decisively, positively and in a timely fashion. Lucky this time...

Bags
 

Thing about the bags is that for many people it may represent an enormous difficulty to replace the contents. I don't mean cameras, or a bit of money. However, all credit/bank cards, all money, passport, driving license, mobile phone, contacts book... Everything except say a few paper hankies, some mints and $3.50 in change. It has been my practise when travelling to put all critical material in my carry on bag and to look after it very carefully.

Perhaps the airlines should advise passengers to ensure that they have such items in a moneybelt or similar? The prospect of being trapped in an airport in some random country, without any resouces at all, at some random time of the day or night, without any clue as to what help might be offered is quite scary to me. Of course death is quite scary too! I can appreciate why some passengers are tempted to take their stuff. I feel *certain* that no airline will look more favourably on any passenger who altruistically abandoned their stuff, against another passenger who is fully equipped with their critical kit.

It is the old "tragedy of the commons". It will make *no* practical difference to *me* if I take my stuff so I may as well. Of course if 199 other people take their stuff and I have to wait behind them then it *will* make a difference to me, however I cannot do anything about them so I may as well look after No. 1.

Like I wrote on the other evac thread, an advertised $10K penalty for carrying a hand carry item down an evac slide would give perspective of value.

In a panic evac, things can get snagged in doorways, etc., wasting precious seconds.

GB

Thank You Williamd
 

thanks for taking the time and effort to find this site and post a detailed first hand account that does indeed answer many questions about this event. (ie PA or no PA etc).
while i agree 100% about the handcarry on evac i think it is a bit petty going after this new contributor for that one issue after his input!
(not aimed at you GB)

How close is safe?
 

Both accounts agree that passengers were left standing within 100 yards of a 747 loaded with fuel for 20 minutes, but none of the responses from the flying pros have addressed this issue. So here is a straight question to all the in-the-know flying personnel: what is the safe distance at which you would stand to watch a potentially burning, fueled-up 747?

Someone mentioned that it's an issue with customs and immigration not allowing them back in, so it's beyond the authority of the aircraft crew.

Given how close to the terminal it was, I suspect a serious fire would have had much wider consequences anyway.

I have tried to provide a detailed version of what transpired, as best as I can recall, with some input from my wife, from my position in the rear cabin.

I have read twice now, apparently from different sources, that some people got off the plane without hearing the emergency evacuation command. This leads me to believe that a cabin crew member, on seeing smoke presumably, did indeed open the door before the evac order was given from the cockpit. This may in fact have been what led to the evac being called.

I would be very interested in hearing professional opinions on this incident, especially in relation to the procedures that should have been followed in comparison to the way it played out. Also if anyone else was on the plane it would be very interesting to hear their comments/version.

Please leave aside comments on hand baggage. Fortunately taking hand baggage off the plane did not cause any major issues in this instance. I fully appreciate it could have, but I believe I have explained clearly why some people had their bags with them.

Having been through a high speed rejected take off and subsequent emergency exit down the slides from a DC10, I can sympathise greatly with the people contributing here who were on the a/c or whose family were onboard.

It is one thing to have SOP's for such situations, it is another to deal with the practicalities and numerous varied circumstances inter-twining with individual crew and passenger reaction.

This sounds a very unpleasent incident to have gone through for both crew and passengers alike which was accentuated by the uncertainty of what was happening, i.e. why was there the smell/smoke and therefore how to deal with it. Hopefully lessons will be learned but I suspect that no training manual will ever be able to deal with all possible scenarios and therefore common sense will often be a major attribute.

Finally I would add my concerns regarding being so close to the aircraft once evacuated. In my own incident we were all left standing near the aircraft at the end of the runway with no-one telling us what to do or where to go. This is perhaps something the airfield operator should be responsible for as they are in the best position to control all movements around the affected area?

BryceM,
Well, how else are the airport fire services going to know about your problem? If you hadn't yet made the decision to evacuate, a quick PAN call to ATC might save lives if you did catch on fire later on. If you were evacuating, a 5-sec MAYDAY would be useful, too.

Going by the above personal account, it appears that there was plenty of communication going on, including a PA by the Captain. During the return to stand, information was received that led to an evacuation command.

If there *had* been a fire in the cabin, I'm sure an evacuation would have been initiated very quickly indeed, possibly independently by the cabin crew. I don't think their desire to remain on board a burning aircraft is any greater than that of the passengers? As (by all indications) there wasn't, there was some thinking time available.

Whenever an evacuation is commanded, you know there is a high risk of serious injuries, even deaths occurring. This has to be balanced against against your perception of how bad the situation might become on board. For smoke/fumes that appears to be coming from the AC, switching off packs/bleeds/engines/apu might be all you need to do to stabilise the situation. If it doesn't work you can boot everyone off but always in the back of your mind are the non-reversible and potentially injurous qualities of evacuation procedures. Believe me, if we jumped out of aircraft every time someone smelt something funny, we'd never get airborne.

Right, an evacuation would NOT take place without the alarm going off. A procedure is to evacuate using public address followed by activation of the alarm. The alarm horn is cancelled by the crew to prevent panic and so shouted commands can be heard. The 747 cabin is large. The crew are by the doors. It is not inconceivable most people simply couldn´t hear it.

Once outside, what was the danger? It appears the problem was caused by acrid smoke, probably within the aircon system. I have had such an incident myself, which was kept low grade, evac by the door and up the jetty. The situation was being monitored internally and externally. There was less risk keeping people nearby than getting them spread out over all the apron and lost. Unless visible signs of fire are present, there is no risk. Had any flames appeared, people would have moved away. It was contained. It seems to me, the situation was extremely well handled. You do not initiate a full evacuation lightly- it must be carefully controlled from the flight deck relying on all sources of information, internal and external.

Once again , we have a well handled situation being sniped at by instant self appointed 'experts' here. Right now a very comprehensive review is being undertaken by BA management who are experts in this sort of event. They will cover all aspects. By all means ask, but don´t come out with self dreamt up theories and criticisms on why things happened as they did. I have been through all this training which was executed here. They did what they did well.

With all due respect to the poster above, there is no point in comparing the incident you were involved with and this incident. I was there and can say that even though I never saw smoke the impression was something was burning. The smell got considerably worse over a 10 min period before it was decided to return to the stand. During this time passengers were increasingly finding it difficult to breathe.

If the plane had reached the jetway and the front door was opened can you imagine the carnage if people had then spotted smoke! No point in announcing over the PA "don't worry chaps, it's just an AC problem and there is nothing to be concerned about". That may be the SOP but in a real life crisis people's survival instincts kick in. Far better to get people off in the chutes than attempt to put 300 panicking passengers through 1 door at the front.

Potential

Many thanks for your post - informative, factual and written from a professional perspective, one of the best on this site for sure.

So having read your post it leaves me with the one key question:

Which door was opened first and by whom? And was this the trigger for all the events that followed?

To "Potential" above.

There was a group of about 12 or so guys and 2/3 girls who I saw at Phoenix before boarding, all with flight cases. I guessed they were trainee pilots.

I was in the rear cabin, seated at 45E, and there was deifnitely an evacuation ordered and it sounded to me to be the captain although it could have been another member of the crew. There was an alarm, a "nnnnnn-nnnnnnn-nnnnnnnn" sound.

My thoughts entirely Lauderdale!

william - think you should edit your post.

If WD and Lauderdale could please remove the speculation about my name and destination from their posts, I'd much appreciate that.

removed by poster

This reminds me of the Air Canada DC-9 about 30 years ago. A fire started in the aft lav, and in the 20 or so minutes it took to get on the ground and evacuated, 22 people were dead. From the burning interior materials, all had fatal levels of cyanide in their blood.

Blood tests of those on the flight would be worthwhile.

If the IFE, In Fright Entertainment, box under 34ABC were shorted and cooking, it's possible that killed the PA to several sections of the cabin. IFE is an afterthought in airliner design, and is often retrofitted with the latest and greatest to match the competition. Since it is classed as nonessential equipment, it doesn't get the same level of safety analysis as the avionics downstairs and in the cockpit. Not to mention SR111.

The PA is at least at the safety level of Essential. It's even live when the plane is down to running on batteries. It's possible in this case there wasn't enough isolation between the PA and the IFE.

When I first got peripherally involved with IFE a dozen years ago, I was shocked to learn they pipe 115vac to every seat group, and those seat boxes get very hot. It never should have taken that level of waste heat to deliver 100 milliwatts of audio to 3 seats. The stuff on BA should be more efficient than that, but apparently not.

GB

No problem, done. Sorry for any inconvenience.

I got the right guy then.

Interesting to hear your story, luckily we never saw any sparks or smoke, if we had my wife would have totally freaked. I did see one of your colleagues come into the rear cabin and shout "don't come in here there is a fire" (or words to that effect).

As a trained professional what was your mind state at the point of seeing smoke?

My brother is a captain with Airtours/My Travel (Now TC) and he told me he once had sparks in the cockpit and had to put goggles on and call a mayday. Said it was very terrifying despite all the training/sims. I haven't had a chance to speak to him since I got back but I will discuss it with him asap.

You probably want to change the above to refer to only one SSSSSSSS person and only one whose name starts with ZZZZZZZ in your class. Sheesh. What is the device that wasn't working, emitted blue sparks, and had caused people to be moved from their seats earlier? You used a three letter acronym above

I don't know which door was opened first. It appears from William's post that the rear cabin may have heard an evacuation call so it is possible that the cabin crew also heard this over the interphone or were alerted by some other means not evident to passengers who are unaware of BAs emergency procedures.

This PA was not heard by myself or any of my colleagues. About the the only part of the cabin that we didn't have someone sitting in was the rear cabin so it is possible that the whole PA system was affected forward of where the sparking/smoke was. On thinking back I may have heard the alarm, but I assumed this to be a smoke alarm.


My immediate reaction was to get a fire extinguisher, but since I was not familiar with the locations or the operation of the equipment on BA 747s, I thought I would try to get one of the doors opened and help people out instead. I was never overly panicked as I was happy that we were on the ground. If we had been in the air, it could have been much more serious, especially if we were mid-Atlantic.

I think that overall it was a good experience to be involved in a successful evacuation with only minor injuries. Later on at the hotel, I spoke to the only passenger who was hospitalised and he was going to be fine.


IFE stands for in-flight entertainment, in other words the TV screen.

Potential -

I have read another person's report who stated that the door on the left was opened by a passenger and that the door on the right over the wing was the first to be opened. Some people appear to have got out before the evac announcement and the alarm went off, it appears for maybe up to 1 min before the other chutes were deployed. Do you think that happened?

That seems like a plausible explanation William. That would explain why the left door was opened with no slide when I reached it. If it had been opened by a pax then they would not have known to check if the slide was set to automatic. If the pilots had deemed that the ground equipment on the left was too close, it may have been possible for them to disable the manual inflation too, but I'm not sure about this. This would explain why the ccm that came to the door could also not get the slide inflated. However, it seems that, like me, she was unaware that the pilots had said the evacuation was only to be on the right side and it doesn't explain why there wasn't already a crewmember at the door. By the time she arrived, I think the right overwing was already opened.