sleeves

Exactly, in the video I saw (where the guy grabs his bag and evacuates) the passenger says," Whoa, the planes on fire". Many examples of how fast a plane goes up in flames. Any delay can cause Death.

butthert

[QUOTE=Setopbug;2845432]Evacuating is never the wrong response.

Not saying what this crew did was wrong by any means but your statement is 100% false. Are you even an airline pilot?

Glenntilton

Do you have a link to the video?

Grumble

Uh, not even close. It costs tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars and puts passengers at risk, sometimes serious risk. You think blowing slides on a full boat, especially a widebody is a freebie and no questions will be asked you have another thing coming.

baseball

I wouldn't say it's a "freebie." and I wouldn't say "no questions asked."

The decision to evacuate is an easier one if you fully know and understand the status of your aircraft. For sure on fire. But, when there's doubt or incomplete information you may delay, or second guess yourself.

Most injuries occur during the evacuation itself. The idea is to expose the passengers to the least amount of risk.

Yes there will be questions asked in both scenarios: obvious need to evacuate, and not-so-obvious feeling of need to evacuate.

I do agree that it the area of risk mitigation it's an area that isn't going to be questioned for very long. You explain yourself, what you knew, what you didn't know and why you decided to use your Emergency Authority.

"I felt it that in interest of safety and an abundance of caution that I was compelled to order an evacuation as it was the safest and most prudent course of action with the information that I knew and had available and that I felt the decision to evacuate would expose my crew and passengers to the least amount of risk possible."

The world is full of crew room lawyers. We've got some actual bonafide ones at ALPA. They do a great job.

TiredSoul

Not at Allegiant

rickair7777

That was the case for a very long time, due primarily to several mass casualty events on the ground which could have been avoided by a timely evac.

But the pendulum swung, my last airline actually asked us to be a little more judicious since pax were getting injured during evacs for spurious computer warnings with no actual signs of smoke/fire, funny smells from the packs, etc.

They actually gave us an optional "expedited deplaning" procedure through the main door (on types that had stairs). I used that once, worked fine and nobody got hurt.

Yes, presumably they had a reason, apparent to them if not to the news media.

Nantonaku

A similar event that was handled differently:

https://youtu.be/OetGcnfV0NM
https://youtu.be/OetGcnfV0NM

AirBear

My Air Force Unit Commander had to evac an Eastern Airlines L-1011 after it landed in Panama and the right main gear collapsed. It was at night. The jet had settled back towards the tail. They popped the left side slides and evac'd. The L1 slide was hanging straight down and no one noticed until pax started hitting the ground. Several went out that door and were injured. The L2 door was hanging down at a 70 degree angle. That's the one my CO went down, he got away with just bruised heels. The L3 and 4 were very shallow. This is something not mentioned in training, at least not at the major airline I worked for. Gotta use some common sense and evaluate the position of the jet.

https://www.upi.com/Archives/1987/07...4693553665600/

nkbux

Gotta be honest I’m not a UAL guy... but it blows my mind how easily people judge the actions and efforts of others. Chances are the “big cheese” in a 320 at UAL has decades of experience in both seats and probably in the Airbus... he or she made the best decision at the time given the information and set of circumstances in front of him (or her). Getting into a falice measuring contest on APC solves nothing and furthermore none of us will ever learn from it by having a conversation on here WITHOUT ANY FACTUAL INFORMATION. They don’t hand out 320 type ratings and UAL captains wings at Walmart...this was more than likely the best decision and that particular moment. Yes pilot error is the real deal and can snow ball into loss of hull or worse human lives. Statistically...emergencies in the good ole US of A have good outcomes... because of experience and high levels of training..EVERYONE walked away... the rest is poppycock...