High quality close up photo from https://path.com/p/1lwrZb:
https://pathakacdn-a.akamaihd.net/photos2/f36a5729-6db7-40db...
https://pathakacdn-a.akamaihd.net/photos2/f36a5729-6db7-40db...
In a situation like that, why wouldn't you grab your bag if it was readily accessible? It seems like healthy, rational behavior rather than a symptom of extreme confusion.
No one's suggesting this. You can both leave the plane in a calm manner and leave your bags behind. As far as I'm concerned, there's no good reason to take your bag unless it's actively obstructing the way out -- which, in fairness, could well be what's happened here.
Off-hand, some reasons not to: the aisles have limited capacity, and more bags in the aisles mean fewer people can be queueing ready to get off. It will take longer to figure out how to use the slide if you want to go down it with your bag, especially if the bag is heavy or large. The bag might have sharp corners which could damage the slide (if I remember rightly, people are advised to remove sharp-heeled shoes for this reason).
Seconds count in situations like this. I think people have taken the "keep calm" message to heart and, if anything, need to be taught to treat this kind of thing more seriously. The reason I mention this is that I'm reminded of the bystander effect:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect#Emergency_vers...
e.g.
> The students were placed in a room-either alone, with two strangers or with three strangers to complete a questionnaire while they waited for the experimenter to return. While they were completing the questionnaire smoke was pumped into the room through a wall vent to simulate an emergency. When students were working alone they noticed the smoke almost immediately (within 5 seconds). However, students that were working in groups took longer (up to 20 seconds) to notice the smoke.
These peoples lives could have been in imminent danger, but they might waste precious seconds to leaving the plane because of social pressures (e.g. someone sees one person taking their bag, so thinks it's okay to do so themselves, or subconsciously thinks the situation is not that serious).
People should keep calm, but they should also know to treat the situation as it is -- an emergency. But as I say, this is all speculation, and may not be relevant at all in this specific instance. I just hope everyone's okay.
I can see what you're saying but "number of people queued in the aisles" isn't an important measurement at all. The important thing would how much the overall rate of passage through the exits is affected by the people who grabbed their bags.
I expect the rate of passage through those exits has a lot to do with what people do when they reach the bottom of the slide. That certainly might be affected by what they're carrying, but then again, people might have simply been tossing their bags over the side. You can't rely too heavily on a single photograph to analyse these things.
> I think people have taken the "keep calm" message to heart and, if anything, need to be taught to treat this kind of thing more seriously.
The alternatives are to keep calm or panic. I guess "seriousness" is subjective but when it comes to calmness vs. panic, I know which alternative I'd prefer the people around me to exhibit in an emergency. Particularly in a confined space. How is this even an argument?
Never mind the whole issue of people grabbing their bags. That plane was rather seriously on fire and the people in the original photograph don't appear to be very concerned about moving away from it. Strange.
The bottlenecks in their escape were the doorway and the
crew's deployment of the inflatable slide... why wouldn't
you grab your bag if it was readily accessible?
Here's a 777: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TAkAcQOnQY
If everyone stops to grab their bag, it can take ten times as long. If the plane is on fire, then people die.
The whole thing now makes me wonder if there was some very deliberate reason for their egress to be delayed. Something having to do with fire or the risk of fire? (I really have no idea)
And of course I check back 7 hours after the edit window.
(Sorry, can't find a reference. Most hits I get are either on emergency reaction/response by outside teams or on long-term emergency responses such as PTSD, community reactions, etc)
(everybody was fine, there were no injuries).
The brain is quite incredible at blocking out bad things.
I fly gliders, where it's fairly common to wear parachutes in flight to guard against structural failure or mid-air collision.
We're told that when we're done flying, we should always exit the glider first, then remove the parachute. Some people will unbuckle the parachute first, then step out. Some of these people have gone on to bail out in flight, and they undo their seat belts, unbuckle their parachute, and then bail out of the plane without it.
I think it would be fair to carry the small package under my seat (my laptop), but reaching for overhead is a joke.
I would think "while the seatbelt sign is on" would be adequate.
Passengers exiting with carry-on baggage were the most frequently cited obstruction to evacuation. Twenty-four of the 36 flight attendants who responded listed carry-on baggage as an obstruction. Overall, 37 percent of the passengers indicated that retrieving carry-on baggage slowed the evacuation; however, in five of the evacuations (cases 9, 16, 24, 27, and 32), a majority of passengers believed that the evacuation was slowed by carry-on baggage. Further, 70 passengers and 8 flight attendants reported arguments between passengers and flight attendants regarding luggage.
[...] The Safety Board concludes that passengers’ efforts to evacuate an airplane with their carry-on baggage continue to pose a problem for flight attendants and are a serious risk to a successful evacuation of an airplane. """
http://www.ntsb.gov/doclib/safetystudies/SS0001.pdf (page 66-68)
The people who brought their bags off the plane today have their clothes, laptops and passports tonight; they can go to work tomorrow. The people who didn't are locked up in a customs holding cell, wearing the same underwear, for a few days until someone can issue them a passport. They'll never get their bag back and the airline will, after filing dozens of forms, compensate them about $50 for it.
Then some of them will really fight with the lock refusing to leave.
Mitigating against that exact misunderstanding was part of my suggestion - otherwise you could just lock them with no lights/explanation, but then you'd run into the problem you describe.
Edit: I'll add that I was in a retail store (employee) that was evacuated by police, due to an armed gunman. People were still worried about the office chair or shredder that they wanted to buy. An officer had to basically get up on a counter, and hold up his gun and badge and say, "Everyone out! Now!"
On the way out some guy was trying to ask me if we would be open later because he (apparently) really wanted to get this office chair he was looking at.
It's human nature. You have to work with it, not against it.
I suppose the emergency info should mention that anything you absolutely can't leave needs to be kept on your person.
Of course most people will thing "aw it will never happen", but if they hear the same message every time they take off people will probably get in the habit of not leaving their wallets in their luggage.