VIDEO showing what happened in Emirates plane before it crashed

VIDEO has been posted (see below) showing the inside of the Emirates plane that crash landed in Dubai yesterday. The most striking thing about the footage is the number of people blocking the aisles to root through the overhead lockers to retrieve their luggage before evacuating the plane.

As the Boarding Area blog points out, this is unbelievably irresponsible. This was a serious crash. There was, according to one witness, smoke in the cabin as it came in to land. Thirteen passengers were injured and one fireman lost his life fighting the ensuing blaze. The plane was completely incinerated. Holding everyone up in such circumstances, while you rummage around for your laptop, wastes vital seconds and has a knock-on effect as those behind you are delayed. (As, presumably, does pulling out your iPhone and filming the chaos.) And carrying heavy baggage down a near-vertical inflatable escape slide, as people around you are throwing themselves out of the plane, has the potential to do serious injury. These are not slow, undulating rides.

Perhaps one shouldn't judge those in the video too harshly. No doubt when the call goes out to evacuate a plane the mind becomes scrambled and common sense flies out the door before the passengers do. Gulliver suspects his first reaction at the sight of smoke would be to leave the cabin at his earliest convenience—but he may be in the minority. Such mindless behaviour is not uncommon: there was, for example, similar criticism when passengers emerged clutching their belongings from a British Airways plane that caught fire in Las Vegas last year.

Writing about that incident on his blog, Patrick Smith makes the point that airlines, in their eagerness to make fluffy pre-flight chit-chat, can mask the really important messages:

“of all the gibberish that is crammed into the typical pre-flight safety demo, seldom is it mentioned that passengers need to leave their bags behind in the event of an evacuation. This should be a bold-print, bullet-point item in any briefing, emphasized clearly and loudly. Instead we get complicated instructions in the use of seat belts, as if there’s a person alive who doesn’t know how to use one, and all the other needless niceties, layered in airline jargon: “at this time,” “we do ask,” “sit back and relax,” etc. Nobody listens, and we hardly blame them.”

Anyone who travels regularly will naturally zone out of the safety announcements. It is useful, therefore, to be reminded once in a while that we can all be daft in the face of danger. The truth, too obvious to need stating, is that laptops and wheelie-bags are replaceable, people are not.