As suggested in the other posts, passengers have only been briefed in two kinds of exit procedures: Normal (take your time and your bags) and Emergency (find the nearest exit, and leave everything non human behind). It is not reasonable to expect passengers to distinguish something halfway in between, so in fairness to the pax, particularly those seated in the exit row who have been told to open the overwing exits in case of emergency, one can hardly blame them for assuming the worst once prompted by an ambiguous announcement.

If the airline procedures allow for something in between, that should be properly explained to the pax in advance, and if the overwing exits are not to be used, that should be briefed to the exit row pax as well.

That is an interesting question, why is there a procedure between "Normal" and "Emergency?" If the plane had in fact been filling up with toxic fumes the only question we would now be asking is "why did it take so long to evacuate?" This is an example of normalcy bias in my opinion. The problem is that there are a lot of people and little volume in an aircraft so you don't have the same time to ponder whether you have a real situation as you do with a house or ship. Fortunately these events are quite rare so I would think that a company could easily absorb the costs of non-essential evacuations, and it does provide good practice -- and each event gives the engineers something to ponder when designing new aircraft.

You don't want your last thought to be "it is probably nothing..."

Quite so.

Worth noting, too, that that AAIU investigation report did not see the need to make any Safety Recommendations in relaton to the event.

This may be one of the few occasions on this forum where a non professional's view might help

As an 'interested' passenger and private pilot who has followed airplane and airline progress for over fifty years I can tell you that the functional difference between 'Disembark' and 'Evacuate' had not really occurred to me until reading about this incident. (Of course I know the 'literal' difference.) Younger people who have no interest in airplanes other than how much it cost to 'get there' wouldn't have a clue, and certainly not in the heat of the moment of an apparent emergency.

As three of my kids went through armed forces officer training a few years ago I was struck by how much of that training was about communicating precise instructions. Basically if you have not told someone exactly how not to screw up they will inevitably make the screw up choices.

The question will be how to tell passengers that you want them to disembark quickly and without their possessions without them jumping to the conclusion that it is some kind of emergency.

I was on a SQ B777, on an airbridge stand at SIN. Mid-way through boarding, the Captain announced "please will everyone deplane immediately". Wasnt an evac and the cabin crew rushed pax to the 2 open doors (First and Business) avoiding any closed doors. Obviously SQ had a mid procedure.

Interestingly the Capt then came into the terminal and told us he had a fire warning in the hold, which was why he asked us to leave immediately, but he didn't deem that to be urgent enough to evac. Turned out to be an aerosole but he couldn't have known that. After we reboarded 2 hours later, we taxiied to the runway and returned to stand due to an issue with the flaps, unsurprisingly a couple of pax then decided they wanted to get off the flight!

In event of a forced evacuation I would not be waiting for passengers to embark politely were people deciding coats and bags are needed and what to bring. Clamber, climb, fight my way to get off the plane were a fire situation happening. Don't care if my photo was in media but not interested in playing nice when my survival and potentially my kids are at stake.

QF at the time I flew for them had "precautionary disembarkation"- basically, a need to disembark asap but where the risk of injury using slides is greatwer than the risk of the non normal/non standard event.

this was only ever to be done after a thorough PA to pax, outlining which doors were to be used (nominates by capt after briefing with cc) and whether steps or slides would be used. Usually the phrase was "due to an abnormal situation, as a PRECAUTION we require to disembark all passengers. At this time steps are/are not available (and slides will be used). Doors mentioned and demoed by crew. Leave all bags, proceed calmly, follow all crew instructions etc. CC would use downgraded version of commands in a normal "marshalling people" volume to the tune of "leave cabin baggage, walk quickly, take care on the stairs/sit down and slide"

at any time it could be upgraded to full evac if situation demanded it, by an announcement on the PA "evacuate evacuate evacuate" and corresponding commands by CC. E.g. "leave everything this way jump and slide/run and move away etc etc...

iirc they used this method in SIN with the wounded A380 once established that full evac was not necessary due presence of RFFS

There's always one ar$£sole!

Only if really really lucky, mostly there are many many more.

at my former airline, we called it a "rapid deplaning", via normal exits, leave your stuff behind

Pax just can't win.

If they follow the little picture-diagrams in the safety card, they get criticized.

If they ignore the little picture-diagrams in the safety-card, they get criticized.

https://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/...-briefing.html

"Everything not prohibited is compulsory."

Can't see the problem. Instruction was given to use all exits. Instruction was obeyed.