Passenger on UA915
I was a passenger in business class on yesterday's UA915 from Paris to Washington that was evacuated via slides on a taxiway at CDG. Below is what I wrote to some colleagues yesterday after the event.
I'll admit it's not hugely technical (given the audience), but for what it's worth, I am a pilot with RAF training, my brother is a BA 747 SFO, and I'm a professor of astrophysics by profession, so if you have any further questions, just fire away. I have little time now as we're heading back to CDG to try again today (!), but I'll be in DC later this evening.
Oh, I didn't have a camera with me, but lots of the 80 or so passengers did, and many pictures were taken as we stood on the cold taxiway waiting for busses.
best wishes,
Mark
I had a funny feeling it was going to be one of those days this morning. First, with just 55 minutes before my flight from Exeter to Paris was due to depart, I went out into the dark morning only to find a very tenacious layer of solid ice all over my car. Managed to chip enough off to see, then off to the airport. Of course, this involves negotiating several delightful Devon roads which are more like cart tracks and I managed to wallop straight into some huge pothole at speed, which sent one of my wheel covers spinning off into a hedge. Managed to reverse and recover it, but, luckily, no puncture.
Then FlyBe BE1501 to Paris CDG, fine. An hour or two in the Red Carpet Club, then on-board UA915 (a 777, but am not sure which configuration). All was normal, a light load on the plane to Washington (only 80 passengers or so [edit: I see from the flight crew posting that it was more like 100, but still]), but I did think (as I always do, mind you) that the chap (another Brit, no less) across the aisle was a bit of an idiot for talking his shoes off before we'd taken off. I mean, what if we have an emergency resulting in an aborted take-off and you have to get out of the plane and run across burning fields ... ?
Well, indeed. One of the main undercarriage bogies (right-hand) decided to catch fire as we were sitting on a taxiway at the end of the runway waiting to take off. Apparently (and this is unverified by me), this was spotted by crew on a Continental jet sitting a few hundred metres away, waiting for their take-off, thank goodness. If we'd taken off without noticing, I doubt you'd be reading this.
Anyway, we all of sudden had a full engine and power shutdown, which I thought very unusual, followed by an insistent bleeping sound which the rather startled cabin crew realised after 10 seconds was the evacuation signal. Then, lickety-split, open went all the doors, whoosh went the slides, and out went all the passengers in double quick time, albeit many with no shoes (!), out on to a cold and windy tarmac miles from the terminal.
No particular panic; all rather calm, if a little bizarre. Even the crew were somewhat taken aback (although they did a great job; many thanks to them): apparently they don't practice jumping down slides during training (which is hardly reassuring). Thankfully, very few people tried to grab their belongings, so we were out on the ground and away from the aircraft very quickly. (Admittedly, I was in 8D, so few people upfront, but I didn't see any signs of panic from the crowd when we were outside).
Fire engines arrived after a couple of minutes, sirens, lots of smoke and steam around the undercarriage; all over, busses back to the terminal.
No-one was hurt, thankfully, just a couple of young kids made tearful, but who soon saw the gee-whiz side of things. At which point it just became a long slog waiting for United's less than crack ground staff to work out what to do: some were crap, really, hardly able to think, but a handful were marvellous (thank you Fiona from the RCC). Cue the usual few businessmen getting pissed off and getting sarcastically insulting to the staff, but pretty much every one else took it in their stride: what are you going to do?
Even though another United flight to Chicago took a small handful of our passengers, most of the rest of us were without cabin and hold luggage, which for many people (albeit not me), meant no passport or money either. Took three hours before the plane was taken to a holding area and we we bussed out there to gather our stuff; by this time, all chance of catching a flight to the US was long gone.
Anyway, they've put us up overnight in the Holiday Inn at CDG and I'll take the same flight (although hopefully not the same plane) tomorrow. Ah well, fun in the fast lane ...
Mark