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Posted on 08/06/2005 11:59:10 PM PDT by BurbankKarl
TORONTO, Ontario (AP) -- Investigators trying to determine why an Air France jet skidded off a runway said Saturday that only four of the aircraft's eight doors and emergency exits were used to escape the burning jetliner, and that two emergency slides malfunctioned.
Real Levasseur of Canada's Transportation Safety Board said one of the four exit doors used by the 309 passengers and crew in their rush to disembark was difficult to open, and that the fire after the crash last Tuesday may have prevented access to the other doors.
Levasseur also said two of the slides used failed to work, even though they are supposed to automatically unfold when the emergency doors are opened.
The discovery confirms comments by many passengers and witnesses who said some of the slides and emergency exists were not functioning, forcing people to jump from as high as 4 or 5 yards.
Some aviation experts have surmised that the impact of the Airbus A340, which slammed into a ravine, might have damaged the exit doors and chutes.
Levasseur said two experts from the U.S. manufacturer of the chutes, Goodrich Corp., and one from the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board were on site looking at why the slides and doors failed to work.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
Ping
ping
CNN once again confounded by no deaths and recumbant backup systems in the guise of extra doors, and they word their article as if they're in mourning over an inability to film body bags. Boo hoo, nobody died.
but there is a lawsuit already!
It turns out that the pilot landed long- touching down in the last third of the runway which is a very generous 9,000 feet!. Human error or weather has not yet been determined
Yeah, I'm certainly no expert but it does seem to me that in a plane crash, some mechanical failures are to be expected.
Sure, look at what happened and see if anything can be improved - but the escape system worked here according to the measure that counts most.
Sorry, when I read that the first person had already filed suit, I just went bonkers.
If this person was badly shaken, slightly injured, and lost personal items in the luggage compartment he should file a friggin lost luggage report with the Airline, or at WORST a small court claim.
And that brings into question CNN's motivating factors for this article's wording.
Sounds to me like everyone in the fly-by-wire-only airplane was a passenger after their power failure.
If you want on or off my aerospace ping list, please contact me by Freep mail not by posting to this thread.
Well, any landing you walk away from . . . . .
"It's not too surprising that the airplane's doors, which fit into tight-tolerance openings in the fuselage, get a little difficult to open when the plane's body undergoes a major structural re-adjustment by hitting the ground."
Bingo!
What happens most time in a car accident where the frame is bent - can't open the doors 'cuz they're jamed.
Really no suprise here.
In flight school, they teach that the last thing you do BEFORE the crash, is open the doors.
Well, duh. How many car doors will open after a bad crash? That's why EMTs have the "jaws of life".
Correct me if I'm wrong, but when the FAA dies uts evacuation test, they assume that half the doors won't open.
Part of the certification process for an airliner is to prove that a full load of passengers and crew can be evacuated in ninety seconds flat, through HALF the doors and slides. That's for situations just like this. You simply cannot expect all the exit doors on an aircraft to work after it takes a hundred-mile-an-hour sled ride off the end of a runway, down six hundred feet of wooded embankment, and into a creekbed. Some will be blocked by fire, some will be bent and unable to open, maybe some just won't work. To assume that eight out of eight doors and slides on that A340-300 would've worked is just comical when considering that the fuselage was broken into multiple pieces.
And before the Airbus-bashers get warmed up...don't go there. The same thing would've happened if you ran a B747 or B777 off a runway. That's not an Airbus vs. Boeing deal, it's just simple physics.
}:-)4
If more airline pilots took their pride out of the way and performed a "go'round" things like this wouldn't happen.
And, things like this:
Correct!
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