Originally Posted by
TMOliver
WReality strikes. Most of the gear is for "Show", much like an infant's security blanket, designed to at least convince pax that steps have been taken to improve survival odds. What pax don't realize is that the odds for survival have only been improved from "Little or no chance" to "Well, maybe somebody will be alive in a raft when the rescuers finally get there".
I think you are correct....much of the emergency evacuation gear is just to make people feel better getting on board.
Even if the pilots were to manage a controlled water landing on calm seas, the chances of evacuating hundreds of people before the aircraft went under.....*
This is the reason why my mother refuses to take Ambien or any other sleep aid while on board, even for 17-hour flights. Whenever I bring it up, she says, "But what if the plane goes down and we have to evacuate? I don't want to be knocked out!"
*But that doesn't mean it's not important to train. I think it's absolutely essential that the FAs get retrained each year on the evacuation procedures.