Lord Spandex Masher

It beggars belief. She had just left an aircraft cabin that was contaminated with smoke and there she was believing that she knew better than the crew and was directing the pax back inside what could have become an inferno. She was also impeding the exit of those inside wanting to get out. She obviously also thought that remaining standing above a tank full of fuel with a possible fire was a good idea. It is a pity that we have advanced so far, in our old hunter gatherer days such people would have been removed from the gene pool at an early age.

I think Jean may have actually saved lives. No disrespect intended, but I'm convinced she is fairly normal passenger, if such a beast exists. Us clever ones in the know fully realise how "stupid" she is but the reality is, she and her friends pay our wages. So we as system have, unintentionally, let her down. She thought there should be a slide so that she could get off the wing, but there wasn't. But what else was she unclear about? Unless we ask, we'll never know but I think we should ask the "Jeans" what we have to do so that they are better equipped in an emergency. However, we have to be honest about this process. If research shows that a briefing makes no difference, then we should stop doing them but maybe, just maybe, we should do some things a little differently in the future - to help the Jeans of this world.

Piltdown
 

You make a good point but you have an uphill task in trying to educate those who don't want and can't be bothered to take a few seconds to learn how to leave an aircraft in an emergency.

I flew twice with Jet2 recently, sitting in the overwing exit row. Cabin crew did no personalised exit row briefing on either sector, and on one occasion failed to check for/clear obstructing baggage prior to landing.
Didn't see one other passenger read the safety card. The cabin crew struggled to get some passengers to stop chatting during the briefing (to their credit they tried)
In my experience bmi baby crew routinely did the overwing briefing, and would pause the safety PA if passengers were obviously not paying attention.
The quality of the PA system in some of the classic 737s leaves a lot to be desired, which doesn't help.

Shame on many of you
 

To all of you who have dissed passengers on this flight, to all of you who have called real people stupid, or any other similar term, you should be ashamed of yourselves.

Passengers should have respect for the crews, but crews should have respect for their passengers too, as someone posted earlier. That way everyone stays in a job and good businesses will grow.

Think again : what would YOUR mother or father do, if they are over 60?


Incidentally, as self confessed SLF who worked airside for a number of years, I don't know either if an A319/20/21 has a slide from the wing emergency exits. I knew the B737 series didn't. And I usually pay attention to briefings, having read extensively about aviation safety.

When people are out of their comfort zone, panicked, stressed, they do things that are often not rational. Are you the same people who called the AF447 crew stupid? Were they stupid?

Kudos to the crew, for everyone got off. Manchester taught (hopefully) all crews that it could have been a different outcome, very quickly. The attitude of some folks on here is appalling. Though as a Glaswegian, the humour made me laugh too :)

Seven pages in, and this is what it boils down to.

A) It is really quite important to listen to the safety briefing.

Or:

B) You don't really have to bother.

OnTime, I would also expect passengers to have respect for themselves and other passengers. I would suggest that they do this by knowing what to do, how to do it, where to go and how to get there.

That way they do not put other lives at risk. Including mine.

Would you be singing the same song if it had turned out that lovely old Jean had been responsible for trapping people, or sending them back, inside a burning aircraft to die?

Poor old Jean...

If she'd only read the safety card, she'd have known there were fuel tanks in the wing! She clearly didn't think at all! Any fule knows, it's clearly there on the safety card, that in the event of emergency the crew will remember to extend the flaps, that the wing isn't a safe place to stay because it's full of fuel, that right there where it says 'NO STEP' is where you're meant to jump off, and that a jump into pitch darkness of unknown height is perfectly safe. She clearly didn't think at all!


Alternatively, she did think. And she came to the wrong answer. She probably thought something was wrong, that the slide she had expected to be there wasn't; that in this day and age "you're meant to jump and hope" probably wasn't the recommended procedure, so something must be wrong and maybe she thought she would be helping the people behind by saying "this clearly isn't right, try another way."

Of course she was wrong. But it doesn't make her an idiot, it makes her a human. If it's human for a professionally trained pilot to have a fit of the quivers because the captain got seasick, then we should probably accept the passengers are at least as susceptible to moments of imperfection.


Maybe the solution is not to blame the SLF for being thick, maybe it's to ask if there is anything we can do to help them make better decisions. And if nobody listens to the safety briefing (something I suspect is massively overstated by cabin crew desperate to convince themselves their calling is higher than just selling scratchcards) then probably best to accept the briefings don't work and come up with something better, because moaning about it isn't going to change anything more than wishing pilots could recognise a stall will.

This is standard practice at many airports at night. A nice long line of white lights makes a good target for assorted miscreants toting an AK47 or RPG near the airport.

SLFandProud...
 

...is perfectly correct in everything he says.

It is, frankly, chilling to see the number of responses from those claiming to be aviation professionals who consider that the appropriate response to a system that is clearly failing on human factors grounds is to call the people involved "cretins," "morons," "drunks" and other offensive (and outrageous) appellations.

Such "professionals" -- and the profoundly unprofessional attitude they represent -- are a greater menace to aviation safety than an entire aircraft-load of Mrs Walkers could ever be.

SLFAndProud ...
 

Thank SLFAndProud for your posts.

I've flown a lot, have a technical background and a strong interest in Aviation. I would hope I am considerably more informed than the normal punter.

And yet to this day it has never occurred to me that the over-wing exits may not have slides off the wing on some [or all] aircraft.

If I was sitting on the wing and I heard the word 'evacuate' I would be out that nearest door with my family also - I don't think I would have time to re-acquaint myself with the exact provisioning of escape slides vis a vis exit doors.

Some of the attitudes displayed on this thread about passenger behaviour are really offensive, trolling almost. - I hope to god they are not coming from flight crew members.

p.s. Furthermore, as a expat-Glaswegian I find the comment about the shoplifting alarm going off to absolutely called for and hilarious.

I've just had a look online at some 737 safety cards. One of unknown vintage for Jet2 seems clear enough about the route but a card from an unknown airline shows the flap shaded yellow, the same colour as the slides.

Now that EZY & RYR are selling extra legroom seats (which just happen to be by the emergency exits!) there is no check on the fitness of people buying such seats. I have twice recently (on RYR) sat next to [apparently] 'unfit' people who would not have been capable of operating the emergency exit - but they have paid for them so the Cabin Crew appear to be reluctant to move them.

Finbarr - that is definitely not the company policy.

SLF and proud
 

I wonder what your reaction would be if your family had been stopped from getting out of an aircraft that was burning because of someone who had failed to take any notice of the safety brief and card ?

Avoiding personal responsabiltity for their actions is what you are advocating, if it was just the likes of Jean who would come to harm because they did not take in the safety brief than I would say nothing but under different circumstances her lack of attention to the safety brief could have resulted in the death of tens of people.......... I am sure that she is not the only one on that aircraft who ignored the safety information that was presented to them but she is the one who stuck her head above the media parapet and proved that she had not taken in the fact that you should slide down the flaps ( that he crew had set to 40).

It would seem that you have not taken in the way to escape from the overwing exit and have proven this by saying that you have to jump off the wing in to a dark area, you should of course slide down the flaps and the area is illuminated by the aircraft emergency lights...........I await another uninformed reply.

A & C

We have to assume the pilot has set flap to 40, which as events proved last week, they may not have done. ( Antalya)

The point is, if only people did what they were supposed to do.

I am not referring to this particular Jet2 incident, however it is clear that, we see pilots not setting flaps 40, cabin crew not doing personal exit briefings, allowing unfit people to sit at exits because they have paid for it, unclear safety cards, & inaudible PAs.

IMHO the whole safety brief needs a revamp, with less emphasis on the life jacket & more on the getting out. Do we need a lifejacket brief for a flight not even going over water?

Clearly a matter of personal opinion. Both Cathay Pacific Airlines and Dragonair have a long held policy of cabin lights on bright for take off and landing at night; although of course set to dim in the cruise when passengers are sleeping.

Then of course you get the faintly ridiculous Qantas Domestic policy of dimming the cabin lights in broad daylight yet turning them to bright for engine start and once the engines are stopped on the tarmac. It was suggested dimming the lights during daytime saves fuel by using less generator load!
In fact it is mindless stupidity by whoever writes the policy manual used by the cabin staff.

Poor old Jean indeed. If I'd been coming out of that exit to find her in front of me she'd have got a hefty shove off the wing because I'm not stopping.

If poor old Jean had taken one or two minutes out of her ever so important life to read and absorb the safety card she wouldn't have needed to think. She would have known where to go and she would have [I]known[/] there was no slide. To not know that, my dear chap, is stupid.

But she obviously didn't want that responsibility, for herself or others.

Running in thank you for providing the uninformed comment.

Mr a Tis you do have a point about the human factors but no matter how much the industry improves the way that safety information is communicated there is a high proportion of passengers who will choose to ignore it, perhaps this is a head in the sand reaction due to a fear of flying.

Lord Spandex I am in total agreement !

Sitting on the ramp post event, flaps certainly looked at 40

Maxred I am not referring to Jet2 at Glasgow in that post, but the B738 in Antayla last week.

Yes we are talking human factors here, both for crew & SLF.

From many of the posts it's the aviation professionals that seem to be burying their heads in the sand.

Running in
 

I did not say Jean was a bad person bad and stupid are to entirely different things, there was a safety brief and a card giving the safety information in the seat pocket in front of her. Not reading and understanding is stupid and shows a lack of responsabiltity for personal safety and the safety of others, fortunately her failure to take in the safety information did not result in death or injury to anyone.

You need to get it into your head that the airline industry can only provide the safety information, the passengers have the responsabiltity to listen and understand the information that is presented to them.

Mr A Tis I am all for better communication of safety information and research into the human factors aspects of passenger safety but when I fly as a passenger I see people who can't be bothered to listen or watch the safety brief, please do tell me what more the industry can do to reach these people ?

As far as I can see the airline industry discharges its duty to give the passengers the safety information they need, it is by and large the passengers who fail in their duty to listen to the brief that is given.

Re - personalised overwing exit briefings.

Im crew for a well known airline in the uk and also work on 737-800's and it is our SOP's to give an awareness briefing to everyone sat in the exit row.. and as far as im aware ALL uk airlines must do this as this is a CAA stipulation. I cannot see how crew would NOT give a briefing :S

You keep coming up with this strawman that Jean is personally responsible because she ignored the safety briefing and didn't read the card. How do you know?

The fact is, everything addressed in the safety briefing Jean, as far as we know, got right. She was conscious, so presumably was wearing her seatbelt when the plane braked & succesfully didn't get knocked out. There's no evidence she stopped to collect her handbaggage. If she put her lifevest on, she obviously remembered not to inflate it inside the aircraft since she got out of the exit. She identified the exit closest to her (of this we can be fairly sure, since the overwing exits are nobody's 'natural' route given a choice,) and took it.

The safety briefing stops there. I have never heard a briefing that told you what to do once you are out on the wing. So on all available evidence, she understood and followed every letter of the briefing. It Was Not Adequate.


As for the card - they are a mishmash of unintelligible iconography designed to be understandable regardless of language but the reality is the opposite. Even if you know what you are looking for, it can be hard to identify details (as someone else mentions, I've seen a card where the flaps are coloured the same colour as, and look a lot like, escape slides.) If you don't know what you're looking for - and how many passengers do you think it occurs to need to check if their particular aircraft has overwing slides or not? - then it's like a Where's Wally cartoon; obvious in hindsight but not so helpful in an emergency.


The fact that most people seem to manage to handle the situations addressed in the safety briefing but then get stuck at something not mentioned in it would seem prima facie evidence not that passengers are idiots that ignore the briefing, but rather that the briefing does work but should be updated to address the real issue of people not knowing how to get off the wing of an aircraft.

If time is the issue, maybe the facile bit could be dropped that in the event of finding yourself in the middle of the atlantic with impending hypothermia an extremely small whistle and light are going to be any help.

Running in
 

Wrong on all counts ! From my posts above I have said I am interested to see any new ways that the safety information can be communicated so that it can be understood by the all the passengers but the main problem is the peope who won't listen, be you a Rocket scientist from Oxford or a fishwife from Peterhead the information won't get through if you don't put down your copy of The Times or OK.

The briefings are as simple as posable to avoid any ambiguity and to give people on a stressful situation as little to do as posable, as to the personal responsabiltity issue, that is one for society in general to adress, but anyone who gets onto an aircraft without understanding that they have a responsabiltity to themselfs to understand how to get out of the aircraft is undoubtably stupid, after all it is very difficult to phone one of the ambulance chasing lawers if you have failed to escape a burning aircraft because you failed to take notice of the safety briefing.

Any transport company has to assume that it's passengers will cooperate if an emergency situation occurs because the alternative is unworkable, the likes of Jean need to get a hold of the fact that they are responsible for taking all the help they can get to assue their personal safety because the responsabiltity rests with themselfs and no one else, this is not just an airline thing it is a whole life thing !

I am also only humble SLF (but who will fly over 100 sectors this year, long and short haul) but take a keen interest in aviation. Hence being registered on here.

As someone else has eloquently pointed out, when crew make mistakes we are all asked to think about "human factors" and how "all the holes in the swiss cheese line up". Clearly the same should apply here.

Most people, if you ask them to think about an emergency evacuation, will think about going down slides. That's what you see (and focus on) in the safety briefing, and that's the image you get when TV pictures show an evacuation. It is what your mind "expects" to see when you need to evacuate.

The safety cards are often not explicit in stating that there is no slide from the overwing exits (for those types where there isn't one). As far as I can recall, I have never seen an explicit reference to sliding down the trailing edge in a video, demonstration or on a safety card (and I have flown many types of metal, with many different airlines). I can only recall it being specifically mentioned once in a personal briefing when I was in the emergency exit row.

Are you seriously expecting an infrequent passenger to look at a picture on a safety card, notice that a slide *isn't* there, and then realise that they are meant to slide down the flaps instead?

Comments about being moronic or stupid don't help when the information provided is clearly not sufficient.

I am not sure I follow it correctly but I fail to understand how the pax in question assumed she needed a slide to descent from the wing to the ground. Having flown only on A320 over the recent months, I expect to see a slide but I can't believe she paid so much attention on an Airbus flight safety demo card.

And one more question: Does the national CAA checks the contents of the demo card? If yes how? They just look at it or they run it through a test sample of pax to see if they convey the right message?

Rwy in Sight

Running in
 

On one hand you are saying that the industry is not giving enough information and not in the correct way and I am more than happy to take the communication issue on board but on the other hand you are telling me that people under stress will do unpredictable things.

By the very nature unpredictable is not predictable so the industry can only do its best to predict what it thinks is most likely and brief for it.
The industry has learned the lessons from incidents and made changes over he years but no emergency situation is likely to be utterly predictable unless you are a newspaper reporter or a lawyer who has had years to decide on a course of action that the crew had seconds to take.

I know the industry is not perfect but it takes all reasonable steps to ensure he safety of the passengers, all I ask is that the passengers take the reasonable course of action and pay attention to the safety information that the airline give.

It's certainly not stupid to say that there are no slides off the wing on the 737, in fact the statement is quite correct.

You forgot one.

C) Why don't we brief the over wing exit passengers on the lack of a slide from the 737 over wing exits? We cover the door operation etc but I'll be the first to admit, I've never thought to mention that there won't be a slide. And I've never heard it mentioned by anyone else either.

As crew, we fly on these aircraft day in, day out. They are old friends to us and we know all their little foibles, even down to the slightly different characteristics that can often be found between aircraft of the same type. We often forget that our passengers don't know these aircraft like we do and that what may seem obvious to us isn't always obvious to those that haven't had safety drills pounded into them year after year.

It's all very well saying, "read the safety card" but as many have pointed out, it's apparently not obvious that there are no slides from the wing on many, if not most. But even if it is, how many people scan the safety card and see what they expect to see, rather than what is actually there? After all, they're probably tired, distracted and would possibly rather not dwell for too long on what might go wrong.

I actually have to thank Jean. She has reminded me that when I came to the 737, having worked on the 757 and 767 for years, I was surprised by the lack of a slide on the overwing exits. Yet I'd positioned regularly on 73's. How had I, as crew, never noticed such a thing? Would I have realised in time, if an evacuation had been called? I can't honestly say that I would and I do read the cards. While that wouldn't have stopped me sliding off of the wing, it might have made me pause for a split second. Jean, who hasn't been through the training, would have been able to see the slides from the doors so should we really be surprised that she stood on the wing wondering where her slide was? All the arrows in the world aren't going to help if you are not seeing what you expected to see at the end of them.

A couple of extra sentences during the over wing briefing will change that. I will now be adding those sentences and will be briefing my crew to do the same. We can't help those that refuse to listen to the demo but we can at least improve the chances of the Jeans of this world. SLFandProud and Running_In have hit the nail on the head, in my opinion.

This may be a non event to some but as with many other incidents that we have learned from - FR Decompression and the bag not inflating comes to mind - one comment by one passenger has highlighted a seemingly small detail that has actually turned out to be pretty important.

jetset lady
 

Absolutely bravo, a credit to the industry.

For my part as SLF, I will in future make a point of checking the safety card for the presence of slides at the overwing exits, and if seated in the exit row (being 6'3" something I aim to be more often than not) will verbally confirm with the cabin crew, for my benefit and also everyone else in the row/within earshot.

What spiffing common sense from jsl. I fully confess to having flown for some years (at the back as I was a smoker) before I knew that some overwing exits didn't have slides.

That said, if an old bat was in my way on the wing I think I would shove her out of the way because I do know that the fuel tanks are in the wing. Or perhaps I wouldn't. Who knows how they will react in such a situation?

And re that fascinating clip of the evacuation of the 737 I'm so pleased that the pax at around the 30 second mark remembered to bring their shopping with them!! :ugh:

Are you serious or are you just plain trolling? And pray tell, what do you do when half the passengers fail the quiz because they were reading their paper instead of preparing for it? Do you kick them off the plane or do you allow them to retake the test after further study review? Or do you send them off to remedial classes?
Get real, will you?

If the student spent all his time playing footie instead of studying then I'd say the teacher is bloody well within his rights to blame it on the student and even flunk him! :ugh: Unfortunately, you cannot flunk paying passengers.

You're right, you're really not trolling, you just evidently bought into the whole "It's not my fault I'm too stupid, it's yours" and "I'm a paying customer so I only have rights and no responsibilities/obligations" mentality, lock stock and barrel. To continue with the teacher analogy, it's not the teacher's job to stop the kids playing football instead of doing their homework after classes, it's the parents'. If said parents keep blaming the teacher then they really got the child they deserve (and vice versa).

BTW, are you perhaps advocating that FAs should walk down the aisle and whack passengers who are obviously not paying attention with a ruler? :ugh:

One to one briefing?
 

I've read this thread with interest, but one thing that puzzles me is the insistence by some posters that people in an exit row seat get a "one to one briefing". I can only remember that happening on a few occasions, and it has consisted of three questions. Are you aware you are sitting in an emergency exit row? Have you read the safety card? are you prepared to open the exit hatch in an emergency? I honestly think that this is the best it gets, when it has happened at all, at least in my experience. So do all the people telling us that its all the passengers fault think this is adequate? And should all the passengers in the exit row get the "briefing" or just the one in the window seat? As for the response that it is SOP, I would just like to ask how the procedure is monitored to ensure its efficacy? I look forward with genuine interest to the replies.

So Running In, you're just going to stand or sit and wait for the cabin crew to do something for you?

If you do that you become part of the problem, afterall there are people behind YOU trying to get out.

If you want to travel as a passenger on my aeroplane then you better accept the responsibility that comes with it. Or you're not travelling.

"BTW, are you perhaps advocating that FAs should walk down the aisle and whack passengers who are obviously not paying attention with a ruler?"

Actually saw a FA walk down the aisle and 'rattle' a businessman's newspaper as it was stuck in front of his face, with a polite "This is important sir, can I have a minute of your time?" Smiles all round from fellow passengers!

How will you stop them travelling on your plane LSM? And how can you be certain that the passengers in the emergency exit rows have been given their "one to one briefing" and have accepted their responsibility? The truth is passenger evacuation procedures are one of the holes in the Swiss cheese and sooner or later it will line up with some other ones and a lot of people will be dead. On the one hand in this thread there are posters, mainly passengers but a few CC saying in reality the evacuation procedures are flawed, and on the other there a few saying that its nothing to do with manufacturers or airlines, its the passengers who are a problem. Maybe you should find another set of passengers.

There are several reasons why we see the same problems with an evacuation, time and time again. This actually appears to be quite a good one , with few injuries and the crew seeming to do a textbook stop on the runway. Most of these have almost been done to death on this thread but once again I feel that the biggest threat to safe operation is the dreaded "Bottom Line".....MONEY
From the moment PAX get on, they are bombarded with PAs to buy this or that and consequently the Safety Demo PA can be lost in the background as people just try to block out the ambient noise. The time spent on the briefing has been shortened by many operators to make sure the aircraft departure is not delayed at the holding point, and the cabin check is performed by the minimum number of crew that the company can get away with by law. THis means that an aircraft with 8 emergency doors/exits can operate with 3 Cabin Crew members.(ratio of 1CC to 50 Pax) Are we all happy with that? Also from my experience, when one starts selling emergency exit seats as an ancillary cost, the true meaning of "Able Bodied Person" seems to get lost in translation for that extra £10. If I had had to open the overwing exit last week, then the person I was sitting next to who was also in an "extra legroom seat", would have acted like a plug and not an ABP.
I certainly don't blame "Jean" per se, but safety costs money, and people appear to be willing to accept reduced margins for a cheap ticket. I guess that's the "Bottom Line".

I have NEVER been offered anything for sale before the safety briefing

the problem is that its is always (almost) the same message and most of the passengers couldn't tell a 737 from a 380

the only one in the last few years that got any attention was the ANZ one with the crew all in body paint.............................

TBH when the current accident rate for western airliners and aircraft is so low passengers just don't think it is likely to happen and they are correct