@riff raff
Its a numbers game costs/benefits etc - as is all "justice"

You can prosecute 1 person
You cannot prosecute an entire plane load
It runs the risk of bringing the juctice system into disrepute - which they are terrified of.
As the old (cynical) saying goes 1 man murders his wife it's a crime, 50000 do it then its a lifestyle choice.

Ok.

Lets just take the example of the Big 3 middle eastern airlines.

To make this work, since they carry such a large % of passengers you would have to get their governments to sign up to this new law.

They absolutely know that if they do, they will definitely be committing to prosecuting their own nationals the next time they have an incident requiring an abandon aircraft.

These are countries where they can't stop their own nationals driving the wrong way down motorways.

The idea that they could ever possibly persuade them that they should not take their baggage with them is ludicrous, particularly when you consider the quantities of cash that many of them are carrying.

There is no need to actually prosecute the passengers, just impound the offending item for longer (and with greater risk of pilferage) than it would take to get the item if left behind.

It also does not have to be perfect in all countries as long as most do so the norm mindset becomes better to leave it than risk the consequences.

Also my prior suggestion of cash reward for leaving items would probably be more effective if instead it was 1-3 years 'gold/platinum/rubidium' (whatever is hardest to attain) status in the airlines mileage program. To many business travelers that would be much more compelling than $100.

I'm not proposing a law, I'm proposing a movie.

cooper.

Nobody is watching the movie.

Seriously.

Airlines have given up on even pretending to make people watch nowadays. Most people have headphones on playing with their ipads or reading a book.

The last thing any airline is going to do is push a movie that will scare people and impinge upon profit, and why would they? There is no tombstone imperative.

OK, I do understand the need to left everything behind. And let's say that about 100 pax escape with their bags and no pax dies. The airline just lost a hull, it is probable the crash is due to its SOP/ maintenance / crew negligence and fights in every possible font to handle the bad news.

Among the people escaping with their bags are some very important customers (commercially) and some pax of high net worth who have a half decent legal team. Some other pax have contacted an ambulance-chasing lawyer who knows their way around. Would you be happy for the airline to have a jail a poor devil that escapes with his possessions because he does not any better and its all he/she has?

I stand to be corrected but those prosecutions would be most intresting.

No need to put people in jail, fear of prosecution has actually been shown to be a weak deterrent at best even with capital punishment.

The law (or even existing 'failure to comply with crew instructions') is only needed to justify seizing the bags to have people believe they are more likely to see them again if they leave them behind than take them.

Pax view thinking scenarios:

Premise : Bag is important to the pax.

1: I will leave it behind for altruistic, help everyone, reasons : A few.

2: I will leave it behind because I might go jail: "no way they would never"

3: I will leave it behind because I might get hurt: "not me I am VIP/invincible"

4: I will leave it behind because it will be confiscated and I will never see it again if I take it with me.
If I leave it I will probably have it within a day since most evacs don't end in fireball.

More and more will pick #4 after a few well publicised instances where exactly that happens.

The desire is the bag, attack the bag not the person.
Legally property is much easier to mess with than people.

An interesting chat with a FA who works for a SE Asian airline and has done for twenty years, the topic was hand baggage and evacuation, in this instance the recent EK accident. What she said was, that most of the pax on that flight are first time flyers coming to work, mainly as labourers and they have no English language whatsoever, so the FA can scream all day and it will make no difference. Second point, these pax came mainly from Kerala state and have absolutely no proper regard for women, they are regarded as chattels and will be ignored anyway.

Get rid of the bins so that the only carry on has to fit under the seat. Imagine the uproar. British Airways allow you to have a 51 pound bag for the bin. Ridiculous.

That obviously has other safety implications as well (to put it mildly).

On the other hand first time flyers are more likely to pay attention to the safety movies etc, if they can understand them of course.

The part about confiscating bags could have images of bags on the tarmac being collecting and tossed into a trash compacting truck.

surely not! in Kerala, or god's own country, as the signs there say. I think this problem extends beyond Kerala.

sadly, everything you say is correct; except maybe about the tombstone imperative. We can all envisage a crash in which delays in evacuation cause deaths.

Hmm, that's not how it works.

Tombstone imperative is post, not pre.

As I said in a post that got pulled a lot earlier but has been repeated here. You want pax to check bags and not take those smaller bags with _very_ valuable contents?
1. Reduce or eliminate checked bag fees.
2. Actually take care of pax's bags.
3. Take accountability for loss of bags far more seriously
4. Understand that the cabin bags now contain things of considerable value to the pax. So ensure that #2 applies to bags left in aircraft after an evacuation. State that the bags will be guarded - and guard them.
5. Provide cheap money belt/wallet holders that can carry wallets, passports, money, jewelry, phone etc. and which are completely hands free.

Those 5 steps will reduce the need for pax to want their bags it will still not fully answer the problems of 'parents' ashes in the bag' but it should improve things. All without having the need for a police cordon around the crash jumping on pax with bags - a PR 'optic' that the airline may wish to avoid.

After the first two occurrences make the news the urge to take bags with you will go down. That 'optic' is exactly what is needed to change behavior.

Also there is no need to jump on the passengers just firmly take the bags, offering a receipt in exchange for passengers name.

I suspect in most cases the passengers will not be able to simply walk away, for safety and other reasons they need to corralled anyway.

BTW: Totally agree with the other points, especially on taking 'real' responsibility for PAX property.

Personally I would ban duty free on aircraft, there is no need to transport spirits etc in overhead lockers, it is another source of danger from flying bottles to flammable fluids in a crash, plus you are burning fuel to haul it all.
I cannot understand why a system couldn't be introduced where when you buy an article of duty free spirits or tobacco etc at your departing airport and you are presented with a voucher that is redeemable at your destination in the shop there. It would also get around those drinking them in flight.


..

Why not create a system that makes things safer for passengers willing to demonstrate personal responsibility for their own safety when flying?

For example, the seats closest to emergency exits could be reserved for passengers that have passed a safety class in commercial aircraft emergency evacuation procedures. This would provide an incentive for people to show greater responsibility in return for increased chance of survival during an emergency crash situation.