martindo

I spend a large part of the year in Indonesia. It is very common for boarding pass issuing clerks to assume that expatriates want the leg room of an emergency exit row seat. Typically, they will give you that type of seat unless you refuse.

Although a westerner might be more savvy if an emergency occurs, I suspect that even someone like me who is fluent in Bahasa Indonesia would have difficulty communicating in such a situation. Therefore, I think it's a bad policy to assign these seats to expatriates on a default basis.

I took a flight on Thursday where a 4-year-old was seated in the emergency exit row along with his mother (ethnic Indonesian but probably a Dutch citizen) and aunt (ethnic European, probably Dutch). It took about 5 minutes for a stewardess to swap all three of them into another row.

I began wondering how water landings are tested. I assume the safety procedures are approved by testing of components: does the raft float with necessary weight capacity? does it pop open properly when the door is opened? But is a total field test ever done, other than when a water landing actually occurs? Has anyone in this forum experienced a water landing?

The picture on the safety card for the aircraft I was on (Boeing 737-ER) shows everybody HOLDING the flotation raft rather than sitting on it. This leads me to surmise that the raft might sink if a lot of adults sat on it.

Has any airline (especially outside the US and other western countries) ever tested the supposedly "universally non-verbal" picture instructions on the safety card to determine whether the instructions are followed correctly in a wide variety of cultures?

In a region where ferries are routinely overloaded, I worry that most people surviving a water landing would instinctively board the raft rather than hanging onto its side with their lower body dangling under the water's surface.

Cholula

martindo, very interesting and thought provoking scenario you present. Thanks for starting the thread.

This forum is as equally devoted to travel safety issues...such as you present...as it is to travel security issues which have been the main focus of the forum.

And welcome to Flyertalk!

themicah

Wikipedia provides a pretty interesting history of water landings. The only one that mentions rafts was the China Airlines 747 that went off the runway in Hong Kong in 1993.

Welcome to flyertalk, Martin.

studentff

Welcome to FT!

That's interesting. I wonder if it's actually a different raft than those loaded into new 737s for North American delivery that is some sort of "warm climate" overwater configuration. My main airline only flies older 737-300/500 aircraft, so it's possible that they just redesigned the rafts in the newer aircraft.

But for a good portion of the year, the likely water landing sites in the USA (Great Lakes, North Atlantic coast, Pacific coast) would have water that is dangerously cold. Hanging onto the side of the raft instead of boarding it would drastically shorten your survival time in such water.

ESpen36

As studentff suggests, for the most part, water landing/evacuation procedures are essentially academic, given the cold water temperatues around most of the United States.

I'm actually surprised that a significant number of controlled water landings have occurred successfully, according to the Wikipedia article.

I still think I would prefer an emergency landing in an extreme land area (North Pole, Sahara desert) over a water ditching. But that's just me.

flyingfkb

I don't think that any airline or aircraft manufacture ever did ditch an aircraft to field test the survival equipment. The life raft manufacture do extensive testing to get the approval. They probably froze the raft, put under extreme heat, punched it, poked it etc. to see what it can withstand. They probably even did open water testing.

Still water landings are very very rare and the worst case scenario. Even if water landings occur it will be always very close to the coast and not in the middle of the ocean. So the raft has the purpose to get you to the shore alive and not to float around for days in the open water.

martindo

I appreciate the remarks everyone made. Regarding studentff's comparison, I wonder if the Indonesian rafts *do* support people sitting on them. The picture on the safety card might be intended to show the *possibility* that one can use the raft just to hold on, rather than the requirement that one do so.

This is where explanation is needed. Either verbally on the card (by localizing it for the region), or by the flight attendants when they explain O2 masks, etc.

LHR/MEL/Europe FF

There is an extensive discussion in another forum on FT about the 'required language' for sitting at an exit row. Air France, for example, requires passengers to speak french. Personally I would think in a true emergency, actions speak much louder than words. It would be instinctive to exit the aircraft. Your job, sitting by the exit, would be to assist people out of the plane.

This is, of course, absolutely correct procedure. In the event of an emergency the instinct of the mother would usually be to look after her children. This could distract or delay her ability to open the exit and assist others.

All the rafts and slides, as pointed out by another poster, are extensively tested. During cabin crew training simulated evactuations are conducted in water for both slides and life rafts.

Aircraft are also tested to determine if exits are useable during different types of emergency. For example, the 747-400 has long range capacity and has additional fuel tanks built into its tail for this purpose. If these tanks are being used for a long flight, the rear of the aircraft is too heavy during take-off for the rear door to remain above the water-line in the event of a ditching. Crew instructions are to guide passengers to door that are more forward.

Large widebody aircraft have slides which double as liferafts. This makes it very simple in the event of a water evacuation as passengers don't have to jump off a slide and then try to climb into a raft.

It is also more likely that these large aircraft will be flying long overwater routes!

Smaller aircraft (such as the A320 family, MD80s, some 757s), especially those that are not regularly scheduled to fly long distances overwater, do not have dual slides/rafts. Rafts, if carried, will be in the ceiling above the aisle at both the front and back of the aircraft. In the event of a ditching, the crew will ask all passengers to stay in their seats while the life raft(s) is removed, placed outside the aircraft and then inflated. (I can't really see everyone being this orderly!) I am wondering whether in some cases the separate raft may not be carried at all, but rather the slide itself is inflated and detached. In this case people would have to hang off the side - the slide is too small to carry everybody (but then again help would not be far away).

Some smaller aircraft (such as the A320) are delivered to customers with long range overwater flights in mind. These aircraft can be equipped with dual slide/rafts from the outset.

dont know!

Regards

lme ff

LHR/MEL/Europe FF

Can you tell whether in the picture the raft was hexagonal in shapre, or rectangular?

Bobster

Pan American Flight 943 used rafts.

The Ditching

martindo

Thanks IMEff for a detailed point by point reply. I question two items:

Personally I would think in a true emergency, actions speak much louder than words. It would be instinctive to exit the aircraft. Your job, sitting by the exit, would be to assist people out of the plane.

Of course it's instinctive. It's also instinctive to enter the plane through the door when boarding. A key problem in an emergency is how to move people out quickly and smoothly.

Bahasa Indonesia is a national language that most people don't learn until age 3 or older, when they go to school. In an emergency (e.g., a bus accident), most if not all Indonesians prefer to speak their mother tongue: Javanese, Balinese, Minang, etc. I am fluent in none of those.

The larger issue for the airline is how to train attendants to remain composed and give clear instructions in a language that is probably not "instinctive" for any of them.

Regarding the comment about rafts being "extensively tested", I have no doubt that is true -- component by component. Rafts are probably tested in water, but I doubt any manufacturer sits a plane in water and determines whether the slides pop out under such conditions. It's probably not feasible to have a *complete* systems test in realistic circumstances ... which may be true for safety features in other walks of life. We take it for granted.

LHR/MEL/Europe FF

What you say is all true, but in reality it all works and it usually works very well. There are many many examples where entire aircraft have been evacuated inside the required 90 seconds and only just before fire or explosion completely destroyed the aircraft.

There is the Garuda Dc-10 that ran off the runway at Fukuoka. The more recent Garuda B737 that crashed on landing (apart from those who dies on the inital impact, everyone else got out before fire destroyed the airframe). And the Air France A340 off the runway at Toronto in 2005.

Lots and lots of cases and the crew get everyone out. Yes there is an issue about people wanting to exit the door they came in, but that is why passengers are asked to identify their closest exit, 'which may be behind them'.

Regards

lme ff

fbrown627

Flight Attendants on U.S. airlines spend most of their training on how to deal with emergencies. After all, that's their main job--not serving drinks. They do this training over and over so that in an emergency, they will bark out orders in such a way, no one is going to refuse. It becomes second nature to them.

All of the major airlines have large pools in their FA training centers. Many even have mockups of planes in those rooms.

A flight attendant, as part of training, must be able to don a life vest, inflate a raft, and climb into it while in the water. All unaided.

DOM1958

They do? I've never had a problem getting an emergency exit seat on Air France flights.
(but I've only flown AF from US to France, and France to Japan)

I only know two French words...

Or perhaps they saw my eyeglasses.... I bought my glasses from FOR EYES
and these glasses speak French.

video proof:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIVwIGGXTaE

Ken Buzza

As a former Chief Steward with QF 1970/91, we originally had to do our emergency drill for liferafts in Botany Bay. Boarding in full regalia with inflated lifejackets was no easy task with a full southerly blowing. With all curtains down and sea anchor deployed it still spun around, tossing up and down with a full load of 30pax. The slideraft was worse, much higher to try and board, most difficult to remain seated inside due to the high inflation of the tubes, rode like a floundering stricken whale.! Regards, Ken