AM,

With all due respect to your experience, on a ship (in many scenarios at least), you are effectively isolated, and therefore the only hope for your passengers. Help is likely to be hours away. Even if your emergency happened abeam a lifeboat or SAR helo station you'd be lucky to get help inside 10-20 minutes surely.

In an aviation evacuation, help is seconds away, and the time till serious fire kicks in is likely to be seconds away as well. You're not comparing like for like.

Fit pax off + aircrew off + firecrew on + 1 invalid off

will on balance be much less than

Fit pax off + aircrew attempt lift off, become casualties + firecrew on + lift off invalid + lift off several aircrew casualties.

With imminent fire / explosion likely, seconds count.

CPB

Speedy safety crews
 

Having just got the link to the press article, read it and discounted journospeak, if it really took 30 mins to get the firemen onto the plane to take the wheelchair PAX out....

1) Lousy communications between cabin crew and rescue teams

2) Poor ground management - you always count noses in emergencies

:mad: :E :* :sad:

gofer

Capt Pit Bull. With your statement "Help is only seconds away" you are talking demonstrable nonsense. Ask the passengers on board the Britannia 757 at Girona how long it took the emergency services to arrive. If the aircraft is a blazing wreck then there's not much else to be done. In other circumstances you have a clear responsibility to your passengers for their safety. All of them, disabled or otherwise. If there are firemen waiting then by all means leave it to them, but if not, it is the responsibility of the crew to do all that they can.

This point has never been denied - you are correct in saying that aircrew must do all they can to help in the event of an evac. Of course thats what we are there for. HOWEVER there is no point putting yourself in a position where you too are likely to become a casualty (read: Liability) to the evac process as a whole. Don't forget there is more to it than just getting pax off a/c - there is initial (and potenitally ongoing, depending on where you are) ground management, first aid etc etc.

I am not sure if that quote is directed at me or not, however I will go ahead and answer it anyway. (Will happily retract if required :) )

The way you describe it is not the way crew feel, nor is it what has been said or implied on this forum. What HAS been said is that pax who LIE to airlines by saying they can move themselves unaided in the event of an emergency are unneccessarily endangering themselves and others - aircrew, fire/rescue services etc. This is not to say that they are precluded from travel, however a lot of airlines will request/require an able bodied carer to be travelling with the person who is unable to move themselves.

On a side note, there is always the chance in an evac that an able bodied passenger will effectively become a quadraplegic - fear can be a very disabling emotion, causing positive or negative panic - negative panic can result in a person sitting in their seat, frozen with fear, completely oblivious to the current/pending danger. Crew again will do everything they can to ensure EVERY passenger is out of the a/c before they themselves evacuate - however our training states over and over that if at any time your life is in danger then you EVACUATE.

Happy Flying All :ok:

Bernoulli,

Strong words. In the context of the firecrew waiting outside, I stand by my statement.

I can only speak from my own experience where the firecrew have been in formation with the aircraft within seconds of coming to a halt on the RET.

The point of my post was to contrast that kind of scenario to a ship at sea, where clearly the crew are completely on their own.

Clearly if you know the firecrew are NOT present, the situation is different and one would make a snap decision as to a course of action. But having done done many a session in the smoke chamber, I am UTTERLY CONVINCED of the futility of stumbling around a smoke filled cabin when trained equipped personnel are available. You take a lungful of smoke, you're going down, THATS IT.

Stop thinking about being a hero and recognise the reality. If you go back into the flames you will almost certainly die, to no effect whatsoever. I don't mind taking a calculated risk, but throwing my life away? No thanks.

CPB

Someone mentioned the right thing todo.

There is the right thing and there is the honourable thing to do. If as a captain I was aware of a disabled passenger left on the Aircraft I would most certainly risk my own safety in order to try and help them. No amount of theory is going to quash my instincts as a human.

Link for Mike Jenvey
 

Click Here for Girona Reports :ok:

Good for you! Ill tell your wife and kids that you died a hero, Even though the fire service were only seconds away. And you held up the rest of the evacuation by collapsing in the middle of the floor and your actions directly contributed to the deaths of several other passangers who now couldnt make it to the exit you had blocked. Well Done!

I wouldn't say anyone callously said disregard them as such, or I certainly hope not.

Apart from that, to me, it's the question of risking your own safety and potentially safety of others to rescue someone else. If the risk is calmly examined, and the risk to you is reasonable and the chance of success is high, then I think it could well be a reasonable course of action to try and rescue them. However, by trying to rescue someone that you almost certainly can't, and the risk of your getting adversely affected is also high, then the decision may not be a reasonable one. By attempting a rescue that is likely to be futile, one would risk causing more work to the professional rescuers, and potentially put the professional rescuer at more risk because they may need to spend more time in a hazardous situation to rescue you.

With regards to the passenger in question on Ryanair, if it took 4 firefighters to get him out, what chance would cabin crew members (who may not have been trained or have the strength) have of getting him out, even if there were a few of them to work together? Even if there was no immediate risk of injury to them through the actual incident, they would risk causing themselves serious injury by lifting a heavy passenger.

I personally do not think that rescuing passengers is always so black and white to say one is obliged to do so at any risk to yourself.

It sounds wonderfully idealistic and heroic to say one would rescue passengers regardless of one's own safety, and it is admirable, but by doing so, it can also have a severe adverse consequence on others too, and I feel potential consequences of your actions always need to be considered.

Quite agree Jonty,
My company neither pay me enough, or train me, to risk my ass to assist a wheelchair passenger out of a burning wreck. I will have probably gone out the flight deck windows during the moment of evacuation (flight deck door being blocked by the evacuating passengers). So for any flight crew to re-enter the aircraft would mean trying to get back up the slide (somehow). Not really going to happen is it? In most cases cabin crew would not be able to lift the passenger to safety, and in some cases would not even try. A 20 stone man is a bit much for anyone to lift (unless you are a welsh weightlifter). Human instict would be to get out and leave it to someone else, such as the fire crew, if they happen to be there in time. Otherwise they become what is known as 'Fire fodder' (horrible expression, I know).
It really is case for the 'greatest good for the greatest number'.

Ancient Mariner.

As an ex marine engineer myself you are not comparing like with like. When an aircraft is evacuated with smoke and possibly fire everything possible is done to help the passengers but very quickly we end up in the situation well known in nautical terms as "Every man for himself". Are you sure you would climb down into a burning hold in a futile attempt to save someone after that order had been given.

I would suspect that it was established in far less than 30 minutes that there was no danger of fire and it was decided to arrange a safe exit for said passenger rather than hurl him down an escape slide. Hence the 30 minute wait would have been for a lift rather than for a firefighter.

Of course I could be wrong.

Perhaps I might be uniquely qualified (just for once) to comment on this subject.

I have been flying actively for almost 50 years and, due to a horrendous accident whilst playing with friends some five years ago, my 17 year old son is seriously disabled.

He is fully cogniscant of the fact when we go on holiday that, in the event of an evacuation, we are going to be sucking the hind tit.

Ladies and gentlemen, that is a fact of life. When evacuating a blazing aircraft there is no such thing as political correctness. If my son and I blocked a slide even for 30 seconds then hundreds could die and that would be an awful result.

As I have said to many of you out there who know me, I don't mind dying but I would sure as hell hate to lose my licence.

When I am in the back of your aircraft with my son I am in absolutely no doubt that we sit tight until everyone else gets out and then we shall take our chance.