YOUR PASSENGERS HAVE SURVIVED THE ACCIDENT, BUT Now WHAT?

摘要

On February 2, 1991, US Airways Flight 1493 crashed at the LAX International Airport in California. Most of the passengers survived the initial impact of the crash―an increasing reality in passenger air travel due to advancing aircraft technology, engineering, and flight crew training. However, the initial survivor rate of Flight 1493 was overshadowed by the fact that many of the passengers subsequently died because of smoke inhalation or their inability to escape the aircraft. To increase the ability of survivors to get out of the aircraft following an accident, airlines began redesigning safety cards and reformulating the safety briefing to demonstrate post-crash procedures. The cards and the briefing were designed to be more engaging and informative. Indeed, as technology advanced and more aircraft had video capabilities, the safety briefing was increasingly presented via video―a venue more prone to captivate passengers. Further, subsequent to the Flight 1493 accident, the emergency rows on aircraft were widened to ease the flow of passengers from the crashed aircraft. While the industry has made great strides in improving passenger safety and survivability of an accident, the industry has not given as much consideration to the immediate or extended question of "Now what happens to the survivors?" subsequent to an accident.