Qantas: five injured in panic-stricken evacuation

io wrote in message ...
> SYDNEY, July 2 (AFP) - Five passengers of a Qantas 747 were injured when
>two escape chutes malfunctioned after a fire in the landing gear triggered
a
>panicked evacuation, Australia's national flag carrier admitted Wednesday.
> The 347 passengers were ordered by the captain to evacuate through the
>inflatable chutes when a ground engineer spotted smoke from one of the 16
>brakes of Flight QF6 from Frankfurt moments after it landed at Sydney
airport
>early on Wednesday.

Now let's see. Have I got this right?

You have 350 people (in a sealed air-conditioned metal tube) who are about
to start disembarking via another metal tube, both tubes being about 2
floors up.

The ground staff tell you you have a fire in a brake assy - at ground
level, obviously.

So what do you do? You evacuate the passengers via emergency slides TO
GROUND LEVEL WHERE THE FIRE IS and where presumably fire appliances are
trying to gain access to it!

> He said passengers were not told why they had to evacuate and could not
>tell that anything was wrong from inside the plane.

Entirely typical for Qantas - tell passengers nothing.


> Some relatives of passengers complained of unnecessary delays in
informing
>them what had happened.
> Charles Knight, 44, had been waiting for his sister's family to arrive
on
>the flight when he first heard media reports that something was wrong.
> He said his brother-in-law phoned him to say everything was okay but
other
>people waiting were unnecessarily alarmed. "I think there are some really
>worried people here and I think it's quite unnecessary for that to be the
case,
>" he said.

Entirely typical for Qantas - see above.

"RT" <r.thomas@cqu.edu.au> wrote in message
news:bdvmb0$11cehp$1@ID-194795.news.dfncis.de...
> Now let's see. Have I got this right?
> You have 350 people (in a sealed air-conditioned metal tube) who are about

OK to here

> to start disembarking via another metal tube, both tubes being about 2
> floors up.

No, the "other" tubes are Inflated comosite material.

> The ground staff tell you you have a fire in a brake assy - at ground
> level, obviously.
> So what do you do? You evacuate the passengers via emergency slides TO
> GROUND LEVEL WHERE THE FIRE IS and where presumably fire appliances are
> trying to gain access to it!

Better to leave them on board? and risk the fire spreading?

> He said passengers were not told why they had to evacuate and could not
> tell that anything was wrong from inside the plane.>
> Entirely typical for Qantas - tell passengers nothing.

They were told to evacuate, isn't that enough for a start?

> > Some relatives of passengers complained of unnecessary delays in
> informing
> >them what had happened.
> > Charles Knight, 44, had been waiting for his sister's family to arrive
> on
> >the flight when he first heard media reports that something was wrong.
> > He said his brother-in-law phoned him to say everything was okay but
> other
> >people waiting were unnecessarily alarmed. "I think there are some really
> >worried people here and I think it's quite unnecessary for that to be the
> case,
> >" he said.
>
> Entirely typical for Qantas - see above.

i worked for the airlines for over 5 yr(delta 2 yrs,midway 2 yrs and air
south 1 yr)i have seen my share of brake fires.whats so funny about the
whole situation is the the flight crew and the passanger didnt have any
idea what was going on till fire and rescue where on the scene.then the
passenger knew the was cause for concern but no need for panic.at rdu
there is bucket of sand that we use to put put such fires.all we have to
do is get a good amount in a bucket and go to the back of the landing
gear and pour the sand on the fire that usually takes care of it.and no
one knows there was a fire except the ramp agent,fire and rescue,and the
crew after they get to the gate.but there shouldnt of been panic.it
really a minor thing if u have a experience grown crew who wont panic.i
think there should be retraining for everybody who was involved in the
incident especially the ramp agents.

> "What happens in an emergency deployment of the slide raft or the chute is
> that obviously not all of them necessarily work the way you want them to."


Why is that obvious ?