If an airplane has to be evacuated, the Federal Aviation Administration says all passengers must be capable of getting outwithin 90 seconds.
But critics say the agency’s testing standards have not kept pace with the shrinking size of airplane seats — which means more people jammed into the cabin — or the changing composition of the flying public.
“This is ridiculous. This is not how we travel today,” said U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) in an interview.
Duckworth argues the FAA’s current tests fail to take real world conditions into consideration.
“They did not mimic the seat density of a modern aircraft. They had no carry-on baggage. They had nobody over the age of 60 and nobody under the age of 18,” said Duckworth, a former Army helicopter pilot who lost both her legs in the Iraq war.
“They didn’t have anybody with a disability. Of course they were able to evacuate the aircraft in 90 seconds,” she said.
I’m with Duckworth that the evacuation standards should take those things into account, but it gets complicated quickly. Where should people with diabilities be seated? They are frequently at the front, but not always. How would you even simulate an average or ‘normal’ amount of disabilities?
But it doesn’t require any specific portion of specific types of passengers.
Minimum seat and row sizes to allow space to allow easier assistance with evacuation would address a lot of those situations. Being packed in makes helping someone with a physical issue or an injury easier far more difficult, even more than the impact on able bodied people trying to squeeze out more people than the plane was designed for. If rows were required to have plenty of space in front of the seat it would make space available to assist the known number of people that aren’t able to get themselves out on their own. Plus it would make it easier to get out the fewer number of able bodied people faster and it would be more comfortable to fly. Win, win for everyone and safety!
You monster! Think what that would do to the shareholder’s value!
What I’m wondering is, how many deaths are attributable to slow evacuation? Usually, you only hear about the great catastrophies where the entire plan crashes into a mountain and evacuation was never an option.
But how many accidents cause a situation where quick emergency evacuations are actually needed? I have absolutely no intuition about that.
The flight polited by Captain Sully that crashed in a river would be the type of crash that has a timeline due to the plane sinking. Another situation with a need for a fast evacuation is a fire. Both are fairly rare because of all of the other safety measures taken when a metal tube filled with fuel takes off and lands over water.
People dying in either scenario because of a pursuit of profits would be terrible.
You mean like the Station Fire?
The easy answer to the disabled question is the row right behind the first class bulkhead. Well, removing that row and using the second row for the disabled.
Ok, now imagine there are more people than fit in one row on the same flight. Or a group of elderly people with mobility issues that are not ‘disabled’.
Also people with back problems, that have a hard time squeezing out of tight rows. Pregnant people 9 months along. Someone who just had leg surgery. Or a group of 30 people with mobility issues who are all going to a conference about mobility issues.
One row is not enough. They could sacrifice 10% of rows and give all of the other rows a significantly more space on most planes.