So we have a site where the media is constantly lambasted for inaccuracies but at the drop of a hat is then used for quote purposes so people can talk about "bloody stupid passengers".

You people amaze me.

Well I'm just a passenger, a fairly frequent one, and it's my personal opinion that your ARE stupid if you don't:

1. Read the safety card;
2. Observe the cabin crew's safety briefing;
3. Check how you personally would leave the aircraft in an evacuation. This perhaps means nothing more that counting the number of rows between yourself and the exits.
4. Listen to the crew's instructions if an evacuation should happen.

In any case, items 1 to 3 should take no more than 5 minutes. When you might have an hour, and likely much more, to kill between departure and arrival, how hard can it be?

This discussion would be a lot more productive in another forum like SLF.

Imagine the pilots not reading their safety instructions for a given aircraft until they actually were in an emergency under stress.

@chrissw,


EXACTLY.


If all the passengers had been like yourself and others, would we be having this conversation? No.


In an emergency, the cabin crew have a duty to help passengers off the aircraft in a safe manner. Anybody that goes against that advice and turns down the help, putting them selves in danger and possibly seriously injuring themselves is stupid.

You only have to watch the majority of passengers behaviour in the airport environment to realise once in an aircraft - they become even more separated from real life and pretty damn close to subhuman in many instances. :ugh:

I think it's all a bit unrealistic to expect much else frankly. From my one experience of trauma I know that your brain does funny things and after a good shaking about you may well not know you are sitting down, let alone in an aircraft, let alone in an accident. I have read that some people struggle to undo their safety buckle and I can well believe it. The odds of me remembering how to open a door (and believe me I do try and remember it) - in the rather unlikely event I got to it first, are approximately zero. In those circumstances I wonder even if I had the card in front of me whether I could open the thing and deploy the slide.

That is why deep training is necessary so that muscle memory takes over, nothing casual will work. Passengers aren't trained and a two minute speech on departure just won't change anything.

However in the less serious situations brains are working and it's a crowd control incident. The passengers will remember that they had a safety brief so know things could be bad. When the aircraft stops they won't yet realise it's only a bit of excitement. For all anyone in the paying seats knows the clock might well be ticking and it's a competitive life or death exercise. Add a bit of smoke and a smell of burning and everyone wants to get up: sitting still and waiting for instructions isn't a comfortable choice. So need to reassure in an authoritive and calming manner. Like that Glasgow incident, any hint of the word 'evacuate'and the aisles will be full.

Any hint of an evacuation.".....
 

And the aisles would be full.

Which demonstrates wonderfully what a mockery the whole ETOPS/EDTO set up really is.

Not that this applies to Jet2. Just shows how the rules are applied to facilitate profit before safety.

A comment I heard from someone once:
"Most passengers check their brains in with their bags"!

Any truth in that?

Don't evacuate unless the situation is unstable, not sure if this rush to evacuate is a British thing?
Is there any evidence that people walked along the wing rather than down the flaps?

Think that's a bit unfair. Manners perhaps, not brains. Only takes a couple of people to get up and good luck restoring calm and order. It's more or less instinctive behaviour. With a backdrop of the odd crying child and screaming passenger there probably just aren't enough cc to man the stations and at the same time patrol the aisles to instil calm.

and

I'm not sure if it was a briefing about the Manchester Airtours accident or just during my training in general, but passengers in an emergency have been categorised as those who:

1) Panic and will climb over everyone and everything to get out and survive;
2) Are in denial, even to the point of sitting in their seat (reading a paper I was told), to the point where they do absolutely nothing;
3) Become agitated/violent;
4) Faff around carrying out out irrelevant tasks instead of making for an exit; or
5) Evaculate in an orderly fashion.

The latter, I suspect, will be in the minority.

Some might even assist cabin crew/help others, but they're likely to be a rarity.

Watch how people behave in lifts (aka elevators). If someone takes command (haha!) of the lift things tend to go more smoothly.

There is a fine line between expecting to be told what to do and in extremis having to make your own decision to protect your life.

The overwing exits are a classic example. Passengers would normally expect to be told when to operate/use these exits. However in extremis (sudden crash landing) they might have to make a decision to use them.

Of course, coordinated action is best and that is one of the reasons why the cabin crew are on board led by flight deck crew.

This is a complex issue but at some level passengers need to have trust in the system. When this is being continually undermined by the sensationalist media and air crash "documentaries" their level of trust may be eroded.

Culturally people are more used to questioning authority. (Think of the recent events with respect to reclining seats.) However passengers need to appreciate that when they get on an a/c they need to follow instructions in order to guarantee their safety.

The aviation industry can't have it both ways. Passengers are expected to queue patiently, sit in a very small space, conform obediently to the commands of the staff, place trust in two people they never get to see. Essentially, they're asked to temporarily cease to be normal human beings.

Then, in an emergency, they're expected to turn instantly into pro-active, clear-thinking, crisis-handling experts?

Make people into sheep...you get sheep.

Returning from holiday as an SLF last night, into LGW, I had been given seat 12C, in an exit row. On boarding the flight I was astonished that the guy who was already seated in 12A was...shall we say...exceedingly large (visualise the shape of a water butt)...and after sitting there for a few minutes thinking how would he actually fit through the window, I tactfully asked him if he was happy sitting next to the emergency exit window. Half expecting a thump, he just said "yer mate I allwiz sitin dis row, can't fit in uverz". Cabin crew brought him a belt extension and looked at him but didn't say anything, and no briefing given to our seat row on use of exits.

Something needs to change. PS. Not Jet2

I regularly fly Jet2 and, when possible, book the more spacious seats in row 12. Most crew are highly professional but I have noted that in 2 of my last 3 flights in the over wing exit row there was no specific briefing given either to me or the pax opposite.

I would be interested in views about what action to take if/when it happens the next time ...

our old SOP was if you needed an extension then you can't sit in a restricted seat.

Safety should always take priority and us in the industry should always remember this.

From the comments about exit row seating I would guess that most have not flown Southwest Airlines in the US+ in their exit rows.

You kind of have to pass a test first to remain in this row as it's guarded by a FA as you board. And don't mumble when asked if you have read the instructions.

Once my wife stepped back to have me lift her bag into the overhead and she was immediately denied the exit row seating (of course I stayed having passed the test :)

From a professional point of view, quite an interesting incident. We practice an evacuation each sim and feel confident we know what to do, but this incident highlights that the procedures we practice never actually really occur in the way we think they will. After GLA it was pointed out that once the evacuation drill was completed in the sim we usually head off for coffee and a break, whereas in real life, the pilots have a lot more duties to perform and made us all think about further actions (which the GLA crew performed well).

In this incident, we have to ask ourselves what would we do if the evacuation was required on stand, with engines shut down, seatbelt signs off and with all pax already in the aisle collecting their luggage from overhead lockers coupled with a failure of the PA system? Honestly, how many times have an average crew practiced this scenario in the sim? What would we have done? What other weird and wonderful variants of the evacuation could occur that we haven't yet practiced, or even considered?

From what I hear, it was another good job done by the crew in difficult conditions. Well done chaps! :ok:

Artie - That's another excellent post. I totally agree that the ordering of an evacuation is only a fraction of the process. The real work starts sorting out the mess afterwards - some never, ever finish it.

This is one of the reasons why I like the more novel safety briefing videos that you see from time to time, such as the Air New Zealand video based on LOTR. Something like this is much more likely to get (and hold) passenger attention than a crew member barking over the PA system.

I think that it'd be easier to keep attention if the briefing was optimised a bit into what is actually important -- is it really still necessary to explain to people how to close a seat belt in this day and age?

Just my €0.02...