Originally Posted by TWA Fan 1

TWA had a company policy of window shades up on take off and landing that was adopted after the aborted take off and crash of flight 843 at JFK in 1992.

In the incident one of the engines caught fire and the flight attendants were not able to see outside to confirm the fire because a number of the window shades were down (the two under-wing engines on the L-1011 could not be seen from the flight deck; the fire was the result of a crack in the fuel line on engine #2 ).

As a result, TWA adopted this policy which I think made a lot of sense from a safety point of view.

P.S.: Despite the aborted take off and fiery crash, the entire plane was evacuated in under two minutes without any loss of life