


Emergency Evacuation on Land

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Category: Fire Smoke and Fumes Fire Smoke and Fumes
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Emergency Evacuation is the urgent abandonment of an aircraft utilising all useable exits.



Failure to evacuate the aircraft in a timely manner may lead to the death or injury of crew and passengers. Failure to evacuate an aircraft in an orderly and safe manner may also lead to injuries to passengers. This article provides an overview of the more common scenarios, certification requirements, crew response, aircraft equipment, and inherent risks of an evacuation. For a more complete treatise on the subject, refer to the Royal Aeronautical Society (RAeS) paper listed under Further Reading.



Typical Scenarios




Common Evacuations Issues



As much as a minute can pass before the ﬂight or cabin crew initiates the evacuation. This is a very long time for passengers to endure if it is obvious that an emergency situation exists. On the other hand, if the emergency is not obvious, passengers may revert to their routine and e.g. start opening the overhead bins to retrieve their luggage. This action will be very difficult to prevent when the cabin crewmembers are required to remain at their stations near the emergency exits.



  • Inadequate crew communication - Non-effective communication between the cabin and the flight deck could result in a significant delay of the evacuaion.

Exit and Slide Operation


Passenger Preparedness

Passengers' lack of preparedness to act appropriately, or adverse behaviour, during an evacuation is a serious issue during many evacuations. Passengers might not perceive the danger they are in and therefore could act in an inappropriate manner (e.g. being slow to respond to cabin crew instructions, looking for friends and relatives or even trying to open overhead compartment storage to retrieve luggage).

Fire, Smoke and Fumes


For example, in the B732, Manchester UK, 1985 accident, the major cause of the fatalities was rapid incapacitation due to the inhalation of the dense toxic/irritant smoke atmosphere within the cabin.

Emergency Briefings


The results of evacuation trials have shown that the opening of emergency doors by passengers was proven to be more successful when the passengers were familiarized with the instructions provided in the safety cards, or when a personal briefing was provided by a cabin crewmember.

Emergency Exits

Depending upon the aircraft, emergency exits can include normal boarding and service doors, overwing exits, and tailcone exits within the passenger cabin; and cockpit windows or hatches on the flight deck and in freight bays. These may be equipped with boarding stairs, evacuation slides or emergency egress ropes. For a more complete description of exit types, refer to section 7.2 of the Royal Aeronautical Society (RAeS) paper Emergency Evacuation of Commercial Passenger Aeroplanes.

Evacuation Slides



Cabin Crew Duties


Accidents & Incidents


  • A139, vicinity Sky Shuttle Heliport Hong Kong China, 2010 (On 3 July 2010, an AW139 helicopter was climbing through 350 feet over Victoria Harbour Hong Kong just after takeoff when the tail rotor detached. A transition to autorotation was accomplished and a controlled ditching followed. All occupants were rescued but some sustained minor injuries. The failure was attributed entirely to manufacturing defects but no corrective manufacturer or regulatory action was taken until two similar accidents had occurred in Qatar (non-fatal) and Brazil (fatal) the following year and two interim Safety Recommendations were issued from this Investigation after which a comprehensive review of the manufacturing process led to numerous changes.)
  • A319, Helsinki Finland, 2018 (On 3 August 2018, smoke appeared and began to intensify in the passenger cabin but not the flight deck of an Airbus A319 taxiing for departure at Helsinki. Cabin crew notified the Captain who stopped the aircraft and sanctioned an emergency evacuation. This then commenced whilst the engines were still running and inadequate instructions to passengers resulted in a completely disorderly evacuation. The Investigation attributed this to inadequate crew procedures which only envisaged an evacuation ordered by the Captain for reasons they were directly aware of and not a situation where the evacuation need was only obvious in the cabin.)

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