Has anyone ever evacuated a plane? How dangerous did it seem?

[muriel_volestrangler]

I ask because a plane had to turn back to London Gatwick airport today, with a suspected fire, and they decided to use the emergency evacuation slides as soon as they brought the plane to a halt. 15 people, out of about 300, were injured in the evacuation. The fire did no significant damage to the plane.

Fifteen people were hurt and taken to hospital after a jet had to make an emergency landing at Gatwick Airport.

The Virgin Atlantic Airbus A330, which had been heading to Orlando in Florida, had to turn back to the UK after what was described as "a small fire" on board.

The 299 passengers who were on board got out down the jet's escape chutes.

Of those taken to hospital, a child had sustained a broken leg, five people had ankle injuries, five spinal or back injuries, two had rib injuries and two had abdominal or stomach injuries.

http://news.sky.com/home/article/16209703

Also: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-sussex-17730154

15 injuries seems a lot to me. Do emergency chutes need to be redesigned? This Guardian report seems to say that panic by a flight attendant may have made things worse: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/16/four-hurt-emergency-evacuation-virgin-gatwick?newsfeed=true

And AP report, in the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2012/04/16/world/europe/ap-eu-britain-emergency-landing.html?_r=1&ref=world

[lpbk2713]

1. Bader-Ginsburg did it a few months ago at age 78.

And she was no worse for the wear.


Link: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/nationnow/2011/09/-ruth-bader-ginsburg-airplane-emergency-evacuation.html

[SoCalDem]

2. No but I was once wearing an old Kapok-filled Mae West

while rafts were being inflated inside a C-47 over the Caribbean

needless to say, we made it to Texas..just in time

[Arctic Dave]

3. Was trained in ARFF operations,

depends on where you exit the plane.

A plane is taller then they look and you can build up some speed coming down.

[Staph]

4. Apparently, evacuations are dangerous, even in test mode!

From a Slate article in 2006:

The new, supersized Airbus A380 was given its compulsory passenger-evacuation test on Sunday, as all 873 passengers and crew made it off the plane in less than a minute and a half. Airbus officials called the test "a very great success" despite the fact that 33 participants required medical attention. Are airplane evacuation tests always so dangerous?

Yes. Evacuating a plane can be quite perilous—whether you're a real passenger or a volunteer in a certification test. A government study of airline evacuation drills in the 1970s and 1980s found that almost 5 percent of the participants get hurt. (The injury rate for Sunday's Airbus test was 3.8 percent.) That's because they have to jump down inflatable slides that are up to 26 feet off the ground.

. . .

In America, the FAA sets the rules for evacuation tests. (The tests in Europe are pretty much the same.) A manufacturer must show that the airplane's maximum capacity of passengers and crewmembers can evacuate the plane in less than 90 seconds—the time it takes a fire to engulf a standard cabin. The fake passengers must be representative of real travelers, which means at least 40 percent should be female and 35 percent have to be older than 50. Three participants must also carry a large doll, to represent an infant.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2006/03/how_did_airbus_ace_its_airplane_evacuation_test.html

[Raven]

5. My parents did in 1963. An Electra

they were on crashed on landing in NYC and rolled over about 7 times before landing upside down and bursting into flames. The plane filled with acrid smoke. People went down those shutes into a swamp. The airline staff evacuated the people on that plane in about 2 minutes. No deaths, some injuries from the impact to people not wearing seatbelts but my parents were not hurt going down the shuts. My mother injured her wrist when she undid her seat belt and fell from the seat to the floor/ceiling. Months later someone came to the door from the airline with a check for $2000. My folks donanted it to their church. Haven't thought about this in a while.

[trof]

15. Don't understand how chutes could work in an inverted airplane.

Maybe I'm missing something.
The evac chutes are attached to the thresholds of the exit doors.
I don't see how they'd be usable in an airplane on its back.

[uppityperson]

21. Whoah, that gave me goosebumps. Glad they were ok.

[FarCenter]

6. The problem seemed to be people not getting clear after they went down the slide

He said some passengers sustained injuries as there were "a pile of bodies at the bottom of the chutes and people landing on top of them".

If they are getting 300 people down 6 slides in two minutes, that is only a few seconds for each person to get up and out of the way of the next person coming down. Preferably a couple of able bodied passengers should go down first so that they can help move others out of the way.

[muriel_volestrangler]

12. And also flying off onto the concrete

Passenger Tom Aldridge told the BBC: "The people panicking as they were jumping off were throwing themselves out of the plane down the chute and there was a big pile of bodies at the bottom where people were just landing on top of each other and there were quite a few injuries."

And fellow passenger Kirsty Bonwick told radio station LBC: "A lot of people were hurt scraping their arms and legs and elbows and bleeding ... you think you're going to stop at the end of the chute and then get up, but you go flying off of it and you just went across the concrete, which is why everybody cut their arms and legs and were bleeding."

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/article/ALeqM5hSBeshHFDk_q5zTkXnFgjm4jHS4A?docId=N0328561334578285499A

[Warpy]

7. Well, a smoked up cabin is pretty drastic

and people do tend to get bumps, sprains and bruises using the emergency chute. However, in an emergency situation, that is acceptable.

I was only evacuated once when an engine blew something out the back when the pilot revved them up. The plane wasn't airborne so it just returned to the gate, everybody grumbled and got off.

I have nasty arthritis, so my plan when I get to the bottom of the chute is to roll out of the way so I can then take my time getting up.

[muriel_volestrangler]

13. Though the amount of smoke was minimal or zero

The airline declined to provide further details on the four injuries or what exactly caused the emergency. But disputing the fire officials, a spokeswoman for Virgin Atlantic told the Associated Press the flight crew had been debriefed and said they did not see or smell smoke on board.

[Bluenorthwest]

8. Once had a engine fire we could see, had to turn round to Heathrow out of Paris

full emergency crews on the ground, we did not do the slides. There was a foam of some sort deployed, although not as much as I wanted. The crew told me the slides were dangerous and always caused injury so they were not used unless utterly required. This was so long ago we spent Shillings in the airport.

[muriel_volestrangler]

10. Sounds like they may have been too quick to use the chutes in this case

Some of the reports say the fire was not actually seen by the crew - it may have been in the cargo hold.

[Bluenorthwest]

16. It was a scene...I was in fact a child, so I sort of wanted the slides

which is why I asked once we were on the ground. These days, I'd rather not see the slides, the masks any of that again, thanks...

[COLGATE4]

9. Yup. Braniff at Miami airport, in 1983 as I remember

Hit a fuel truck with the wing while taxiing into the terminal. Took FOREVER to file out and get off. Jet fuel all over the place. No panic, not much of anything but a long, long, long wait to get the hell out of there.

[muriel_volestrangler]

11. But no injuries?

So it sounds like the "90 seconds to evacuate the plane" mentioned above wasn't even tried for, in your case?

[COLGATE4]

26. No. There wasn't any time limit. I guess it took about 4 minutes

to clear out the plane. No injuries. No shouting. Everyone deathly quiet.

[Cleita]

14. Not on the evacuation slide, but this was on a DC7 prop plane and probably didn't have any.

We did land with two engines operating and one that had caught on fire, which is what initiated the emergency to begin with. Rickety stairs that didn't fit the plane (you had to jump down) I guess would substitute for chutes. The crew hurried us off and into the terminal, actually a metal airplane hanger, on an emergency landing strip in the middle of a jungle somewhere in South America. I believe it was Ecuador but I really don't remember cause I was pretty tired already from being in the air for hours and hours. Nobody was injured from the jumping. We had to wait ten hours for the airline to fly another airplane to pick us up as the one we were in was unrepairable for the time being.

Somewhere while we were waiting, a bar was set up and some vendors arrived with food. A marimba band showed up to entertain us. I have no idea where they came from because as I said we were in the middle of the jungle. It was a good thing they tried to distract us because it was unbearable hot and humid. It was quite an experience. Frankly, I think the chutes would intimidate me.

[Kaleva]

17. Handling that big enema bag is an arduous task

[nadinbrzezinski]

18. As a medic was involved in the helping people off the slide

It is controlled chaos, with some reason many a times. You are supposed to wait for the person at bottom to get off before jumping on it. That don't necessarily happens. This is when many of the injuries happen.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

19. This is why...

...there are rules in place requiring the crew to explain to those in exit row seats the duties they may have to assist the crew if an evacuation is needed. I fly mostly Airbus 321s which have 8 exit doors for ~ 180 - 200 passengers. A full A321 can easily take 10 - 15 to empty through a single door. When fire is an issue, getting out is much more time critical. Scrapes or fractures can be treated. Once you pass out from smoke inhalation, the next doctor you see could be the ME.

[trof]

20. Yes. Bumps and scrapes are normal. Oh yeah, wear cotton.

I've done it a couple of times when I was with TWA.
FAA tests.

In jumbo jets, especially, you're going pretty fast when you hit the ground at the bottom of the slide.
If you're young and agile enough to hit the ground running, that's the thing to do.
Plus, if there's fire involved you want to get as far away from the aircraft as fast as you can.

Why cotton?
There have been reports of synthetic fabric fusing to skin due to the friction heat on the slide.
Think 'pantyhose'.
Also, I'd wear flat comfortable shoes any time you're flying.
Makes it easier going through TSA security too.


It's rare that an emergency evacuation happens with NO injuries.
But they're usually minor.
"Treated and released."

[grasswire]

23. yeah, many people dress very poorly for air travel

flip flops, tank tops, etc. Actually, people dress poorly for some car travel too. They will jump the whole ding-dang family into the car without coats in winter, without shoes, etc.

Be Prepared.

[HooptieWagon]

22. It beats burnning to death.

[spanone]

24. if my ass was on fire.....

[muriel_volestrangler]

25. But what if, as in this case, your ass wasn't on fire?

In this case, there seems to have been an instrument indication of a problem, which may have been a small fire in the cargo hold, which obviously could have spread. But reports also say the crew never saw fire, or smelled smoke. An interview in the link below says the plane stopped suddenly, and without warning, after landing; then there was a time when nothing happened; then the lights went out; then the pilot gave the order to evacuate.

Should an evacuation down slides, which a link above says is expected to have about a 5% injury rate, like this did, be used when there doesn't seem to be a need for rushing?

http://www.itv.com/news/2012-04-16/virgin-atlantics-emergency-landing-at-gatwick-airport/