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Times: Ryanair cabin crew struggles to open doors on burning plane



 
 
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Old August 2nd, 2004, 06:55 AM
Sufaud
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Default Times: Ryanair cabin crew struggles to open doors on burning plane

Ryanair cabin crew struggles to open doors on burning plane
By Ben Webster, Transport Correspondent

The Times (London)
2 August 2004

Picture (diagram):
http://images.thetimes.co.uk/TGD/pic...,139153,00.jpg


CABIN crew on Europe's largest budget airline struggled to open
emergency exits during a fire because of inadequate training, a report
by safety investigators says.

Passengers began to panic on the Ryanair aircraft and there was
"pushing and shoving" after the pilot ordered them to evacuate the
aircraft.

Airport staff at Stansted, Essex, had spotted flames shooting from the
rear of the right engine on the Boeing 737 as it landed. The cabin
crew smelt burning and saw smoke billowing from under the wing.

Firecrew advised the pilot by radio to evacuate the aircraft's 115
passengers. But the pilot did not hear a second message a few seconds
later telling him to make sure passengers did not use the doors on the
right side where firefighters were tackling the burning engine.

Cabin crew members at both the front and back of the aircraft tried to
open the doors on the right side but found them too heavy. Greater
force than usual is required to open an aircraft door in an emergency
because the act of opening it automatically deploys an inflatable
slide.

The crew members, both believed to be female, had to call on male
staff to help them to open the doors. An Air Accidents Investigation
Branch report, published after a two-year inquiry into the incident,
said that most of Ryanair's "new entrant cabin crew personnel" were
not properly trained in opening exit doors.

"The door opening forces which they encountered during training were
considerably less than those that would be encountered in a real
evacuation with an armed evacuation slide." They had been "advised"
that the doors would be heavier but had not practised opening them in
realistic emergency conditions.

The investigators acknowledged that safety regulations covering the
training of cabin crew left some ambiguity over how evacuation
procedures were taught. But they said they had repeatedly advised
airlines of the "importance of realistic door operation during
evacuation training".

The rules on aircraft evacuation were tightened after the Manchester
airport disaster of 1985, in which 55 people died after failing to
escape from a burning British Airways aircraft. That incident also
began with a fire in an engine on a Boeing 737.

In another similarity both pilots then began the evacuation with the
fuselage downwind from the burning engine. This meant that the fire
could be fanned by the wind towards the passengers. In the Manchester
incident the firefighters were unable to contain the blaze and it
spread very quickly to the fuselage.

The report on the Stansted incident, which took place in February
2002, said: "Had the right engine developed an uncontained fire, the
relative wind would have exacerbated the situation." That would have
adversely affected the survival rates.

About 40 passengers escaped from the Ryanair aircraft on the right
side, towards the burning engine. Firefighters ordered six passengers
who had jumped out on to the wing to get back inside the aircraft and
exit on the other side. The report concluded that this had hindered
the firefighting operation.

Four passengers received minor injuries during the evacuation, which
was completed in about 90 seconds.

The investigators recommended that both the Irish Aviation Authority
(IAA), Ryanair's safety regulator, and the JAA, the European aviation
safety body, should review cabin crew training.

A Ryanair spokeswoman said: "If the IAA and the JAA modify existing
procedures on the back of this recommendation, we will, of course,
like all other airlines, implement new modifications fully."

COST CUTTING

* Ryanair saves money by contracting out cabin crew training to
centres across Europe, including in Poland and Latvia

* The company forces applicants to pay for the course and all their
travel and accommodation expenses, at a total cost of about £2,000

* Cabin crew are also required to pay for their uniforms, medical
examinations and airport identity cards

* Ryanair claims it does accept cabin crew trained in Britain, but
states on its website: "At present Ryanair do not recruit from any
training schools in the UK"
*

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspap...199379,00.html
 




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