6 FlightCom Magazine
A
LL of these
recent
incidents
have been
the result
of runway
(and in
one case, taxiway) excursions.
The events leading up to these
situations which resulted in
aircrew ending up as wide-
eyed passengers in their own
aircraft are varied, but all had
one common denominator – the
failure to manage an Undesired
Aircraft State (UAS) that was
the result of some threat orerror not very well managed.
I have considered the
situations where we need to
force ourselves to abandon the
specific threat management and
concentrate on sorting out the
UAS as a priority. Basically, all
these situations have ended up
being literally in the weeds as
a result of a loss of control. Had
the crew focused entirely on
resolving the UAS (by initiating
that all important go-around,
for example), these accidents
would not have happened.
Says me with perfect 20/20
hindsight.Having had an unexpected
arrival in the veld, with what
must be that most awful of
sinking feelings in the cockpit
(assuming one still has a pulse
at this point), what now? Well,
we have to get out as soon as
possible if we intend preserving
the afore-mentioned pulse.
The statistics on evacuations
are not pretty by any means, and
with my very broad evaluation,
they generally tend to be semi-
controlled panic and mayhem.
A passenger’s worst
nightmare is an aggregate of
the prospect of a) crashing andb) surviving the crash, only to
meet a fiery death. Thus, should
the stuff of nightmares actually
occur, all those blatantly
ignored safety briefings are out
the window and survival of the
fittest kicks in.
The process of a rapid
de-planement is fraught with
problems.
As a point of reference,
the amount of passengers
allowed to be carried in any
aircraft is determined by how
quickly they can all get out.
This has some inconvenient
complications added by
the certifying authorities.
Firstly, the process has to be
demonstrated and observed for
all new aircraft types, with the
following requirements. Half
of all exits must be blocked. It
must be done in the dark, and
it must be raining. And it must
be done in less than 90 seconds.
The A380 certification
demonstration is on YouTube,
and has some interesting
stats. The ‘passengers’ were
not allowed any pre-briefing,
except for the standard cabin
crew/safety card story. The
crew had no special training
for the event – although Airbus
did select a Lufthansa crew for
some reason.
Of the 873 ‘victims’, 33
suffered injuries (including theAirline Ops
MIKE GOUGH
Excursions
I see that over the past month the aviation sector had four separate
occasions to use the emergency exit slides – worldwide, that is. Fortunately,
I have managed to keep mine well stowed in the door bustles, and I hope I
can keep it that way.
A380 evacuation test. With 33 injuries, including a
broken leg, it was considered a huge success.