Issue 29: November/December 1985

And it is this latter point that presently has more than a few people in the industry wondering where the true priority lies. Perhaps through bad luck, or certainly bad timing, a number of Boeing 747 operators have elected to close the two overwing emergency exits so that an additional 12 economy seats can be installed in the reconfigured areas.

The decision to perform this modification to the world’s largest airliner was initially sanctioned by the northwestern division of the Federal Aviation Administration (the US FAA operates in regions with Washington DC as a central base). Boeing complied with the mod as it improved the seat kilometre economics of their 747 and, after all, was sanctioned by the FAA as being safe. Cabin crew and pilot groups around the world have generally decided to go along with the modification as it carried with it official (FAA) approval and at the time was first mooted, in late 1983, there was a real need to get airline economics back into the black. Nowadays though the same sentiments don’t exist, and for understandable reasons.

The 747 typically has ten exits on the main deck. The FAA proposal sanctions the blocking off of exits 3 Right and Left leaving eight exits on the main deck. This can only be done however on aircraft carrying less than 440 passengers. The certification standard on cabin evacuation states that a full passenger complement must be able to be evacuated in under 90 seconds using only the exits down one side of the aircraft. What the FAA did, however, was to simply use computer-generated scenarios to establish that it was safe to remove the 747 overwing exits -they had never actually performed a real evacuation to prove that this was viable!

In a year of unprecedented air disasters, it is indeed surprising to find airlines actually removing emergency exits when there is almost a case for the opposite course of action. The initial certification guidelines on cabin evacuation are seen by many at best as being slightly halcyon.

For instance, the rules require that ‘passengers’ performing the certification evacuation are in normal health, one-third are female with only 10% being children under 12 years of age. The test is normally performed in one of the manufacturer’s assembly plants, in the dark and using standard emergency cabin lighting only. The ‘passengers’ are generally voluntary company employees and their families who following the evacuations enjoy tea and biscuits and reflect on their new adventure. Indeed before the evacuation even begins these same people are obviously in an· adventurous mood or otherwise they would not be there in the first place.

Our simple question is – are these people, performing in a totally benign environment, physically fit, alert and mostly familiar with the aircraft they are in, typical of what is found aboard and airliner in the latter stages of a survivable accident? We hardly need to tell you the answer, as anybody with an IQ better than ten could figure it out!

The more realistic scenario of life revolves around a packed passenger Cabiri of perhaps a dozen different nationalities, of people that have major hearing and movement impediments, many children; some babies, and people who cannot understand any of the languages employed by the cabin crew and perhaps several dozen who, once having lost something as fundamentally basic as eyeglasses cannot see more than a few metres ahead of them. And this is BEFORE the accident! Following impact, add black toxic smoke, hydrogen cyanide and carbon monoxide gas from burning seat cushions, flame, intense heat, perhaps darkness, broken glass everywhere from duty-free liquor and several hundred panicking people all heading for exits and while most may be serviceable, some may be clocked and some may no longer exist.

Additionally, this is considering that you are lucky and remain uninjured following the initial impact. If you are at all injured then your chances of survival amidst such a hostile environment are slim to say the least.

If all this sounds a trifle emotional then consider the difference between the previously described certification evacuation and for instance, the British Airtours 737 evacuation at Manchester.

They were hardly equivalent, were they?

Additionally, the problem is magnified on the modded 747 as in some cases passengers are now more than seventy feet from the nearest available exit! That is almost half the distance of the Wright Brothers’ first flight and needless to say is totally unacceptable to the promotion of air safety.

The US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has recently announced that it is now not in favour of the removal of 747 overwing exits and even the FAA is having second thoughts. Fortunately, few 747 operators have actually performed the mod. Thai International ordered the kits from Boeing but decided not to fit them, both BA and KLM have performed the mod while Qantas has decided definitely to retain its overwing exits.

It has been said that there is a time for everything; certainly, 1985 would not seem to be the time for the removal of those potentially life-saving exits from the world’s largest passenger aircraft.

Safety at the Other End of the Spectrum

In this issue we commence a new series, appropriately entitled Air Safety, it is aimed directly at the opposite end of the aviation spectrum. Australia’s airline safety record is excellent, in fact the world’s best, our GA figures aren’t however nearly as good.

With the positive assistance of the Department of Aviation Flight Standards Division (yes, they still talk to us despite all the hammering give them!) we have launched Air Safety as an aid to the private pilot. In each issue, we will outline a scenario that most private pilots can more than appreciate from practical experience and attempt to show in a realistic manner how and why the situation occurred. Moreover, Air Safety will hopefully explain how a pilot can retrieve himself (or herself) from a sticky situation and learn from the experience.

If you are a private pilot then hopefully this series will be of immense value to you not only today but in the years to come.