When I was at US, the slides on the 1R door on the DC-9s and MD-80s would occasionally drop out from the clamshell when catering slammed the door shut in a hurry. Sometimes this would freak out the people I was flying with , but there was no danger since they would only inflate when the tab was pulled. We would call maintenance, and they would come up and put it back in by using a slotted screwdriver to wedge the top of the clamshell back into the lip.

At least one time it fell out as we were on the taxiway in line for takeoff. I stuck my head in the cockpit to tell the captain I could get it back in using a piece of F silverware, saving a delay and missed connections for our customers by not having to go back to the gate. ^


You could become a FA and get to go to recurrent every year , although we just simulated deploying a slide. The only one I've ever seen inflated was the DC-9 / MD-80 tailcone simulator at the training center in PIT.