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New Delhi: Emirates flight EK-521 crash-landing in Dubai has become a test case of how not to evacuate passengers in an emergency.
The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) is planning to circulate videos of evacuation clicked by fleeing flyers of EK-521 to Indian carriers with a note on how these scenes must not be allowed and also reiterate the correct procedure for the same.
EK-521’s emergency landing in Dubai on August 3 was not a planned one as the Boeing 777 was in the process of going around when things suddenly went out of control.
“It seems a sudden change of winds when the aircraft was attempting a very late go-around may have led to a tail strike from which the big bird did not recover,” said a senior crash investigator in India.
“Being a sudden and unplanned situation, what we saw is how not to carry an evacuation in an emergency. Passengers are seen leaving with their big cabin bags. And once they got out, instead of running away to safety many stayed to click pictures and videos with their personal electronic devices like phones and tablets,” said a senior official.
Now DGCA is planning to circulate these videos to Indian carriers. “Cabin crew must be as firm as needed in such situations. Passengers should be firmly told to leave cabin baggage behind as the bags can block aisles, thereby slowing down evacuation. Also, sharp edges of bags and sloes of footwear can puncture the inflated evacuation slides,” said the official.
A senior Indian airline official said the time has come for aircraft manufacturers, airlines and safety regulators to decide how stark they want pre-take off safety announcements to be. A safety card kept by some airlines behind each seat tells flyers to slide down the inflatable evac slides after removing footwear and without any cabin bags. Pictures on them also show passengers without baggage after an evacuation. But hardly anyone reads these cards or sees the safety video with attention.
