A U.S. senator is pressing the FAA to investigate whether its aircraft evacuation procedures are helpful or even realistic during real-life emergencies.
Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) sent a letter to FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford on Tuesday asking his agency to compare its standards, which call for the evacuation of a grounded aircraft within 90 seconds, against recent incidents.
Duckworth cited the evacuation of an American Airlines jet in Denver in July. A video shot on the runway showed passengers sliding down inflatable chutes, some holding onto luggage and small children, as fire and smoke rose from the aircraft’s landing gear.
One witness said it took about 10 or 15 minutes for the passengers to get off the airplane, she noted, with the latter estimate exceeding FAA standards by 10 times.
The senator also called attention to the evacuation of a Delta Air Lines flight in April due to an engine fire and a March incident in which American Airlines passengers were forced to scramble onto the wing of their aircraft, “enveloped in hazardous smoke,” to escape a fire in the cabin. None of those evacuations appear to have proceeded exactly as the FAA prescribes, Duckworth noted, and it’s not clear they ever could have.
“While FAA has yet to disclose how long any of the referenced passenger evacuations took, these incidents once again raise serious questions about FAA’s 90-second evacuation standard as well as FAA’s assumptions about how evacuations occur in real world conditions (such as the assumption every passenger will comply with instructions to deplane without carry-on bags),” Duckworth’s letter read.
Duckworth also pointed to a report from the U.S. Transportation Department’s inspector general, which found the FAA “has not conducted sufficient research on passenger behaviors” during evacuations, including how they handle luggage or emotional support animals.
Duckworth put forward a number of questions to the agency about the recent aircraft evacuations, including how long they took, how many passengers exited with bags, and how many were children, seniors, or disabled. She gave Bedford until August 12 to produce the figures.
The senator also asked for an update on the agency’s study on evacuation standards, which was required as part of the last FAA Reauthorization Act.
The FAA is investigating the evacuations referenced in Duckworth’s letter. In each instance, passengers received only minor injuries while getting off the aircraft.
