Originally Posted by
amc184
I was also on the 8th of October AS589 flight, and it sure was a strange incident. notquiteaff was quite a few rows closer - I initially thought someone had slammed an overhead bin near me closed, but quickly realized it was much loader than that. My second thought was a negligent discharge of a sky marshal's firearm, but I heard an airbag mentioned, which made sense.....
Considering an aircraft change was required the delay wasn't too bad, only about 90 minutes if I remember right. We simply reboarded onto a different plane of the same type with the same boarding passes, and I was kind of surprised that they put two of the three affected passengers into the same seats, also equipped with airbags. That must have been fun for them, but maybe they weren't that rattled by the whole thing.
Inadvertent deployment does happen and any sensor can go wrong.
I'm curious about the medical treatment and the rapid turn about for the affected passengers. Typical airbags can result in a mix of friction, thermal and chemical burns. Flushing and cooling with large volumes of saline (water in a pinch) would be normal but I'm not sure bags of ice is entirely recommended? It would't remove any chemical residue anyhow. I have seen a report of a child being seen by airport paramedics and released back on a long haul flight only to end up in hospital on arrival and need 12 months of intermittent skin treatment as facial burns developed during the flight. Uncommon perhaps but also unpleasant.