The Times article on this speculated that the presence of smoke discouraged people from trying to get their bags, and that sped up the evacuation.
Another factor - since the nose of the plane was tilted down because a tire blew, the people who evacuated from the rear door had to walk uphill to do so, in smoke.
Fwiw, when i did this 50 years ago in the US, everyone got off as directed, and no one squabbled to try to get their luggage.
Well, there was my dad. The issue with him was that he wanted to keep his newspaper, and the flight attendant told him he couldn’t carry anything on the slide. But he was the only one on a 747. Everyone else exited really really fast.
I honestly think that people would exit quickly in America, too. Even the guy who jumped – he didn’t follow directions, but he didn’t get in anyone’s way, and he exited fast.
Plane full of smoke, flight attendants saying, “walk here and you can escape”. I think people mostly follow instructions.
The A350 suffered a complete failure of the nose gear, not just a blown tire.
My sources (principally blancolirio) indicate that all evacuation was done from 3 forward slides - no aft exit was usable.
Your father sounds like quite the character.
It took much longer to evacuate than I thought–18 minutes in total. I thought it was a case of a well-trained crew and passengers that followed instructions. Not really: instead it was more the fire-resistant materials used and luck.
Hayashi estimated it took about three to five minutes for the doors to open.
Japan Airlines said it took some time to get the doors open because cabin attendants first needed the pilot’s confirmation that the airplane had come to a complete stop. The cabin attendants also needed to confirm whether it was safe to evacuate and figure out which slides were usable, an airline spokeswoman said.
Ultimately, the airline said, only three of the eight slides were used because of safety issues with the others that it couldn’t specify. Those three were the two slides at the front of the plane—on the left and the right—and the left slide at the back of the plane.
See the comments for a non-paywalled source at:
I thought in the event of a crash landing, we needed to evacuate as quickly as possible, like within two or three minutes. I’m kind of surprised it took as long as it did before the doors were even opened. I also didn’t know we would have to wait for the go-ahead from the pilot and cabin crew.
Sounds like there were flames that made the other slides non-functional. Or unsafe.
That’s one of the steps on the instructions for the emergency exit, “look to see if it’s safe”, and there’s usually a little picture of a person looking at flames with an “X” over that exit.
I’m also surprised it took that long, though.
“As quickly as possible,” yes. However, that phrase is defined by more than just how fast you can move bodies through doorways. As previously noted, before you can even start getting people out, the plane needs to be definitively stopped, and the safe exit points need to be verified. If these things aren’t confirmed, you risk making a bad situation even worse.
Perhaps you’re thinking of something like this?
Hmm, I’m not sure if the wsj supports gift links. Try this?
Inside a Flaming Jet, 367 Passengers Had Minutes to Flee. Here’s How They Did It. How 367 Passengers Escaped the Japan Airlines Crash With Minutes to Flee - WSJ
It looks like they got off pretty soon after the doors opened too.
The radio transcript is showing that the coast guard pilot screwed up: ATC told him to hold short of the runway, and he echoed the instruction back to ATC, confirming his understanding - and then he taxied out onto the runway anyway. But there were several other things that should have prevented this, but didn’t:
-
ATC is supposed to be watching the airfield - that’s why they’re in a tower instead of a basement - and should have seen that the coast guard plane wasn’t where it was supposed to be. Nighttime makes this harder, but it shouldn’t have been impossible.
-
there are red lights embedded in the pavement at the stop bar where the coast guard plane should have stopped, and ATC is supposed to turn them on when they want a plane to stop there. However, these particular lights have reportedly been out of service since 12/27. If they had been working, it would have been one more visual reminder to the pilot that he was supposed to stop there. Knowing that these lights were offline, ATC should have verbally warned the coast guard pilot of this; the extra focus on that issue might have focused the pilot more sharply on the fact that he was supposed to stop there.
-
There were two people in the dash-8 cockpit. The pilot was the only one who echoed the ATC instruction…but the copilot should also have heard and understood the instruction. If he understood the instruction and saw that the pilot was not following it, then under the tenets of crew resource management, he had an obligation to speak up. If he didn’t notice the discrepancy, then his mistake was the same as that of the pilot. Unfortunately he didn’t survive, so we’ll never know.
Technology exists to provide a clearer picture of airport ground traffic, and even automate warnings when there’s a situation that presents a risk of collision - but as is often the case, upgrades aren’t cheap. It’s said that aviation regs are written in blood; maybe this disaster, which somehow only took 5 out of 382 lives, will spur more rapid adoption of this tech.
Reuters: Concerns mount over runway technology gap as Japan probes crash
To our pilots and engineers here…
Why don’t modern planes have a means for the pilots to see the wings and engines from the cockpit? I get the design of the plane doesn’t allow them to see by looking out a window but some modern cars have little cameras that look behind them (e.g. Tesla shows a rear view when you engage the turning signal to see if anyone is there). Seems a small thing to put on a plane. I have watched many air crash videos and it is not uncommon for the pilots to have no clue what is happening (or, at least, not grasp the extent of the problem) simply because they cannot get a look at the wings/engines.
I’m pretty sure the pilots knew there was a fire, despite what that article claims. Cameras on the engines won’t tell them anything they wouldn’t already know from the extensive instrumentation that’s already monitoring the engine health. If all of that info suddenly goes away because you just crashed and the wiring was cut or the sensors obliterated, you don’t really need to camera to verify that, nevermind the fact that the camera is probably gone by that point as well.
From the surveillance video, we have direct evidence that the Dash-8 was lined up on the runway for 45 seconds before the collision, long after the Airbus had been given clearance to land. It appears at this point to be the Dash-8 coastguard crew’s primary error to line up without clearance, but it’s also a huge unexplained error that the Tower controller with a commanding view of the runway did not look during that time.
IANAPilot:
I am shocked to think any pilot is given permission to enter the runway and then just sit there for 45 seconds at a busy airport. I have seen it done at very small airports during the daytime in clear weather but to let a plane linger on a runway like this seems weird.
Again, IANAPilot but every time I fly the plane rolls onto the runway and then goes almost immediately (a few second pause where I imagine they all do the bit from the movie “Airplane”…Do we have clearance Clarence? Roger Roger. What’s our vector Victor).
There’s a transcript of ATC just before the crash here.
JAL incident at Haneda Airport - Page 22 - PPRuNe Forums
In the air - JAL516 is the accident Airbus, behind them on approach is JAL166.
On the ground - JA722A is the accident Dash-8 (DAL276 and JAL179 are other uninvolved taxiing aircraft).
What appears to happen is that JAL516 is given clearance to land just before the taxiing JA722A comes on frequency. JA722A then comes on frequency and is given clearance to a holding point C5 just short of the runway and told he is “Number 1” - intended to mean (as it always would in standard usage) the next departure among the several taxiing aircraft, not necessarily the next to use the runway. The controller’s intention is apparently for JAL516 to land, then JA722A to depart, then JAL166 to land. JA722A never hears of JAL516’s existence, because JAL516 is cleared to land before he comes on frequency. What he does hear is the Tower controller giving instructions to JAL166 (the second aircraft on approach) to slow down for a preceding departure.
This gives JA722A a flawed understanding of the upcoming sequence of events. JAL516 does not exist, the first thing to happen will be that JA722A departs, and JAL166 on approach is being told to slow down to allow time for that. This leads JA722A to make an egregious error and line up on the runway without clearance. But given his mistaken understanding of the upcoming sequence of events - that JAL166 on final approach is being told to slow down to minimum approach speed to allow him to depart first, and that he had been cleared to line up on the runway - it is inexplicable that JA722A after he lined up did not quickly ask the controller why he had not been given immediate take-off clearance. He just sat silent lined up on the runway for 45 seconds.
The one sensible case I can think of is when a big plane takes off, and a next-in-line smaller plane needs to wait for a minute or two for wake turbulence to dissipate. If you know you’re going to be taking off next, it might make sense to use that window of time to get lined up so that the very next step is to throttle up and go.
Can’t find the article now, but I recently read that pilots tend to get really antsy if they’re held on the runway for a significant length of time.
Theoretically, maybe. But in this instance (we have the surveillance video) JA722A can see that there has been adequate time since the last departure, and he is hearing the controller give JAL166 (who he thinks is the next aircraft on final approach) instructions to slow to minimum approach speed to give him time to depart first.
So in addition to the egregious error in lining up without clearance, it is inexplicable that JA722A did not speak up and ask the controller when he did not get an immediate take-off clearance, and instead just sat silently on the runway for 45 seconds until his world caved in.
As mentioned, it is also inexplicable why the Tower controller who has a commanding view of the runway and knows that he has a landing aircraft on short final did not look at the runway during that 45 seconds.
I agree with you (and the PPRUNE discussion, which I have been following) that this is likely the sequence of events. I have the sinking feeling that the last words in the Dash-8 flight deck was likely “What’s taking the tower so long to clear us for tak—”