Originally Posted by
Jenbel
...I'm thinking of the Airbus which caught fire and burned out in the far east with pax on board - was the entire plane not ablaze in around 3 mins? If you've got people trying to get bags off in that kind of situation, then they will kill some of the people behind them, unnecessarily.
Or the AF A340 in Canada (Montreal?) that landed long on the runway, or the CO 737 recently in Colorado -- both cases where everyone made it out just ahead of the flames.
The safety lock might not work unless its default state is locked, because in some emergencies (inc. US 1549) what limited battery power is left must be preserved for essential functions (e.g. flight controls). Over time that probably would result in a lot malfunctions at the gates when they don't unlock on command.