Bingo ^ We're talking about portable computers and frequent flyers here. If we're devastated by the loss of our laptop, we need to re-visit our backup plans.

Whoa. Imo, some perspective is needed here. If we are devastated by the loss of our laptop, we need to revisit our life plans!

It's just work. Work can be redone. Life is a one shot deal here! :eek:

I can't backup most of my work...at least not to the cloud. But imo, so what if everything I worked on burned to the ground, whatever...

I don't agree with this. Of course losing one's laptop can be disastrous. Not everyone has a large multinational to buy them a new machine every 18 months and some people have their whole livelihood -- business and personal -- on their computers. How many times do you hear about someone losing their entire life's memories after their laptop was stolen? Heck, there was a article earlier this year about a Montreal-based *professional* photographer who lost his life's work when thieves stole his computer and backup drives from his home. Our lives have become so dependent on computers that it's easy to believe that people can be devastated by the loss of their computers.

My point was that as frequent travellers, we face an increased probability of having our belongings lost or stolen, so we should be prepared for the possibility. So, as OttawaMark points out, we should stand to lose very little by leaving our laptops behind when evacuating a plane. And indeed, we stand to lose much more by taking the time to retrieve them in an emergency.

A little off topic, but I'd like to take this opportunity to mention that flight crews train for situations like this FIRSTLY. The service aspect of the job is secondary to safety.

If you get a chance to catch the live ATC of this incident the crew are calm collected and efficient. I'll repeat that the crew did an amazing job here.

And that's a good argument. But you lose all credibility with me when you start talking about dirty laundry.

Also, I have no idea how I'd act if I were on fire. Maybe I'd be calm and rational, maybe not.

^ I'm glad to know I'm not the only person who intentionally keeps my shoes on until the seatbelt light goes out, and then puts them back on for landing.

Also, totally agree, I keep my phone, wallet, passport in my pockets during flights. Cargo pants/shorts are great for this.

OK. For me it's a matter of perspective. In order of importance in the case of an emergency evacuation:

#1 Get out safely, calmly without impeding others' ability to evacuate while most importantly following the orders of the crews.
#1,037,312 grabbing essential items such as medication, passport or vital documents.
#1,044,193 grabbing your dirty laundry.

So yes, I agree some things are more important than others, but take a step back and you might see that medication and dirty underwear are pretty much the same thing...relatively speaking to #1

Yeah, see, the difference is, if I were to land in a less-friendly country, without a passport or my medication, there may be no difference between waiting on the burning plane 5 minutes to get my meds and evacuating immediately.

So your number 1037312 would be my number 2. And using non-paniced rational though, my willingness to grab something to take with me would depend on:

1. Where are we (what country, how close are we to a city, etc.)
2. Where are we (in the middle of a swamp where carrying a bag is not an option, or on a runway)
3. What is the condition of the aircraft (raging inferno vs. hydraulic leak vs. a door broke off in flight)

But in panic mode, I have no idea what I'd do.

The thing is, you really can't judge the severity of an aircraft fire. If you read about AC 797, the instant the doors were opened what was a minor fire was drastically inflamed and basically those who were closest to the exits were the only ones who survived. I've been in a flaming vehicle (bus) where we didn't even realize it was on fire until we got off and saw the entire engine engulfed in flames.

You're obviously a savvy traveller. The highest risk elements of flight are:

TTL. Taxi, Take-off & Landing.

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (BlackBerry; U; BlackBerry 9780; en-US) AppleWebKit/534.8+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/6.0.0.666 Mobile Safari/534.8+)

No, the biggest risk is waiting for a gate upgrade.

I would put any fire in the "raging inferno" category, for those exact reasons.

I think people should be allowed to take whatever bags they want, with them as they conduct their emergency exit -- but only on the condition that they sit and wait for all the passengers who want to exit without bags, to finish doing that first.

If you're not prepared to sit there and patiently watch other people leave in front of you, while you sit there (in a burning plane) waiting for them to exit first... then you shouldn't be so damn selfish to take a bag with you in front of other people.

And given that the zone boarding fiasco has shown that people can't follow basic ordering rules, even in a non-emergency situation... of course it's not feasible to actually have two separate groups exiting... hence the rules exist the way they do today. Nice and simple, easy to understand, and with an old fashioned bias to keeping people alive.

Or like they say in french:

"Décollage, Atterrissage et (wait for it) Roulage." :D:D:D

Don't believe me? Next time you're in a 787, look at the safety sticker in the J "stowage" compartments LOL (in the pax seats).

That s a very significant point. Some passengers will freeze, some will panic, most will evacuate calmly and in a rational manner, but not everyone.

Passengers are not trained for this situation, so the instinctual reaction is to revert to what you know - grab hand baggage and exit the plane. I doubt that many passengers who took their baggage could even remember consciously making the decision to do so, they just did it without thinking because that's what they always do.

Those calling for the passengers to be hung, drawn, and quartered for taking baggage with them are all assuming that it is a calm, rational decision to take the baggage with them. For a number of passengers it will be an instinctual decision. While probably not applicable here, in the Asiania crash at SFO the overhead lockers came open and bags blocked the aisles, so the passengers were instructed to take the bags with them to clear the evacuation route. We will have to wait for the accident report to know if that was a factor.

Put yourself in the shoes of cabin crew at the door at the top of the slide and a passenger comes to the door with a bag. Are you going to stop them and argue that they are not allowed to take it? If you do that and they leave it, then what do you do with the now abandoned bag? Pile it it near the door and block the evacuation path? It's much easier and quicker to just push the passenger down the slide, bag and all.