Thanks for your colleague's account: I hope it makes the point that a real water landing is not like those drawings on the safety cards.

However, I respectfully disagree with your advice to "riot." Aggression can spread as quickly as panic in a desperate crowd; invariably it makes the situation worse. Calm, authoritative action (not necessarily verbal) gets results without creating a mob that tramples its weaker members. Screaming invectives at a person who is head-injured, in psychological shock, or doesn't understand your language, won't work anyway.

When I worked in mental health I had to physically control people who were psychotic, but gained new perspective after suffering a head injury while working on my house alone.

I lost consciousness (and enough blood to go anemic), may have seized, got up a flight of stairs somehow, and locked every door and window in the house; I "came to" sitting at my kitchen table after night had fallen. This primitive "safety" response could actually have kept help from getting to me, but whatever part of my brain still functioned guided the actions. Would I have become the typical combative head-injury patient if someone had tried to stop me? I'll never know. This was from a mild concussion�no subdural or skull damage. A black t-shirt hid the blood, so I probably looked perfectly normal.

I didn't think I had advised rioting in these circumstances. May have come across that way though.

Could we learn from sunnyjl what type of "medical professional" he is so that we could judge how much weight we should give his statements? I am surprised that he "would let her have it" as he says.

I'd give sunnyjl the benefit of the doubt here and chalk that last statement up to posturing and rhetoric. Most of us blusterous types here would not actually assault a fellow passenger when there would be calmer ways to do the same thing in this case. The medical professional sunnyjl is would probably allow him/her to help professionally difuse this hot situation and that training would certainly be a help in assisiting with the after math.

All good points. I don't need to know any specifics.

The problem is that you can only do that if you know the outcome of the crash is going to be ok - so you are looking at this incident with the benefit of hindsight and saying "look, it all turned out ok, they could have taken their bags" and yes, it probably would have been.

Unfortunately, during any aircraft crash at any actual moment, you have no idea how long you have to get everyone out. As someone else has calculated, everyone taking just 3 seconds longer to evacuate means it take 7.5 mins for everyone to get safely off the plane - and your unknown variables in a crash are things like how long will it take for the aircraft to fill with smoke/water/fire?

It's not acceptable in a crash for anyone to attempt to do anything which is a) unnecessary and b) increases the risk of death for others on the plane - even if they are in shock. Arguing that such behaviour should be allowed, when during an incident you don't know what window of opportunity you have to get everyone off the plane before something catastrophic occurs is frankly playing russian roulette.

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.

I wonder if future jetliners may well have a safety lock that engages (at the pilot's command) that would prevent the overhead compartments from opening. It would be a rather nice feature for times when the plane encounters turbulence, too.

What? Are you serious? Terrible idea I think.

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.

Re-read your post; I did take it that way, now understand you may not have meant it so.

What concerns me is the testosterone-poisoned tone of many responses in this thread, justifying panicky desk jockeys going Dirty Harry on pax who may be injured or in shock, when the important thing is TO KEEP EVERYONE MOVING OUT OF THE PLANE.

I've never evacuated a crashed plane, but experienced a crowd so crushing people were holding their babies over their heads. Moving even 1-2" was difficult: I got lifted off my feet at one point. A few people who gave calm directions under pressure kept it from becoming an emergency.

Also, haven't overhead bins come loose even in bad turbulence or hard landings? If they were all attached by such a system, they could impede evacuation even more.

That's overstating it a bit. Some people will be in shock & not really thinking about situation; other self-centered individuals will be looking out for themselves & their stuff & fully aware of what they're doing as they obstruct others from a hasty exit.

I just hope I'm never on one of the planes!!!!

Quite possibly there will be, but my points were that
1) brain-injured vs self-centered PIA can look the same in the split-second evaluation of an emergency, and
2) assault or threat thereof rarely improves such situations (except in the movies).

Me neither... well, on second thought, maybe with a really good book contract afterwards ...

http://aviationblog.dallasnews.com/a...about-her.html

The Allied Pilots Association, which represents American Airlines pilots, sent out this account Friday afternoon. Rather than repeat what the APA wrote, I'll provide it in its entirety:

The following is an exclusive account for our members from one of our pilots who was onboard US Airways Flight 1549 when the pilots made a successful emergency ditching into New York's Hudson River. First Officer Susan O'Donnell is a LGA-based 767 pilot. She resides with her family in Winnsboro, South Carolina. Susan is a former Navy pilot, hired at AA in February 1990. She has flown the 727, F100, A300 and now the 767.

The following is her account of the flight, the rescue and recovery response, as well as the support she experienced afterward. This is intended to give each of you a unique insight into the event. We also hope that the crew's tremendous effort to take care of each other and the nearly instantaneous support of USAPA and APA responders become "takeaways" for our pilots to use when faced with an emergency.

"I was a jumpseat rider seated in First Class on Flight 1549 from LGA to CLT, which successfully ditched in the Hudson River. I've been asked to share a few of my experiences on that day. Although it was a stressful incident, the successful outcome and the assistance and support I received afterwards have been truly humbling and inspirational.
"After introducing myself to and being welcomed aboard by Captain Sullenberger and FO Skiles, I was offered seat 3D, an aisle seat in the last row of First Class. I was in my uniform. Another jumpseat rider took a seat in row 6. These were the last empty seats on the airplane. I wasn't paying much attention to the flight until, climbing out, there were several loud thumps occurring roughly simultaneously along both sides of the aircraft. "Bird strikes," I thought. A few seconds later, there was a bit of smoke and the stench of burning bird that seemed to confirm my guess. There was a turn to the left, and I assumed we were returning to LGA.

"The passengers were concerned but calm. I couldn't see any part of the aircraft out the window from my aisle seat. Although I didn't hear much that sounded encouraging from the engines, I expected we would have at least partial thrust with which to limp back to LGA. We rolled out of the turn, and I could tell we were not maintaining altitude. Then we heard the PA: "This is the Captain. Brace for impact."

"Obviously we weren't returning to LGA, and I could see enough out the window to realize we'd be landing in the river. The flight attendants began shouting their "brace" litanies and kept it up until touchdown. The descent seemed very controlled, and the sink rate reasonably low. I believed the impact would be violent but survivable, although I did consider the alternative. The passengers remained calm and almost completely quiet. As we approached the water, I braced by folding my arms against the seat back in front of me, then putting my head against my arms. There was a brief hard jolt, a rapid decel and we were stopped. It was much milder than I had anticipated. If the jolt had been turbulence, I would have described it as moderate. Thinking about it later on, I realized it was no worse than a carrier landing.

"After landing, the attitude of the aircraft was slightly nose high, but not far off a normal parked attitude, and there was no obvious damage to the cabin or water intrusion where I was. No one was hurt or panicked. We all stood up. I could hear the doors open and the sound of slide inflation. There was a verbal command "Evacuate;" people were already moving towards the doors. I exited through the forward right door and entered the raft. The evacuation up front was orderly and swift,
><snip><

Well, I guess some on this forum would still WANT to go all "Dirty Harry." Just because