[ad_1]
As reported by The Aviation Herald, a Spirit Airlines plane suffered an engine fire and evacuation yesterday. There are two interesting aspects to the story – the actual incident, and then the video of the evacuation.
Spirit Airlines A320neo has an incident in Atlantic City
This is Spirit Airlines flight 3044 from Atlantic City (ACY) to Fort Lauderdale (FLL) last night (October 2, 2021). The flight was operated by an almost two-year-old Airbus A320neo with registration code N922NK.
The aircraft was accelerating for take-off on runway 31 at Atlantic City Airport, although the crew rejected the take-off at about 60 knots due to a bird strike with the right engine. This was a rejected take-off at fairly low speed, and the aircraft came to rest only 1,800 feet on the runway. The engine caught fire as a result of this incident. The pilots called for fire trucks and about a minute later they called for the plane to be evacuated. Everyone got off the plane without incident.
A passenger sitting just behind the right wing filmed the engine fire, and I can obviously understand how scary it must have been for the passengers on board.
Then there is the evacuation video
The passengers had to evacuate the plane via emergency slides. There is about a four minute video of what it was inside the cabin during this incident, and my god the passengers are certainly not very good at following instructions.
You can hear the crew say “stay seated, stay seated” repeatedly. But the passengers do not remain seated, but get up, retrieve their items from the upper chests and shout “Fire, fire, fire”. You can hear the passengers shouting “oh crap we have to get out of here” as the crew continues to announce to remain seated as the fire trucks are on their way. But the passengers keep asking to get off the plane, shouting “come on, open this door and let us out”.
Finally (once the fire is under control), the passengers are called to evacuate and must avoid the engines on the right. As passengers evacuate, they are repeatedly told to leave everything behind and just jump down the slide. Go understand that hardly anyone is listening, and instead most passengers take their bags.
Fortunately it was not a more serious situation, but this evacuation is downright painful to watch:
- The first passengers try to tell the crew when the evacuation is due, as if they have any idea what they are talking about
- Then, when they are finally cleared to evacuate, they endanger themselves and the other passengers by taking their luggage with them; a lady with a bag even fell to the ground because i guess she was trying to take too much stuff with her
From the crew’s perspective, it appears they went out of their way to help the passengers evacuate safely. They repeatedly told passengers to stay seated (few people listened) and repeatedly told passengers to leave their carry-on baggage (they didn’t listen), so what could the crew really do?
At the end of the line
A Spirit Airlines Airbus A320neo had to be evacuated at Atlantic City Airport last night after the engine caught fire from a bird strike. The plane was brought to a standstill and emergency services were called, and the situation was quickly contained, at which point the passengers were safely evacuated.
Yet watching the way the passengers acted during the evacuation is incredibly frustrating. Passengers do not listen to crew instructions at all, both to remain seated and to leave hand luggage. Fortunately, in this situation, it did not cost anyone their lives.
[ad_2]
Source link