16 August 2023 , 13:46
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A life-saving device that can prove deadly if used in the wrong way causes flight attendants to have nightmares, one has claimed.
Emergency slides are installed on planes to save lives in the rare event that an aircraft crashes, providing a way for passengers to get down from the cabin onto the ground. As useful as they may be, if deployed in the wrong way the slides can prove deadly.
Former flight attendant Jay Roberts explained that accidentally activating an emergency slide is something cabin crew "dread" and is the source of much anxiety for them.
The former senior cabin crew member for Emirates, who runs the popular Fly Guy's Cabin Crew Lounge network, told MailOnline: "Even with several checks and balances involving more than one person to ensure the slides don't open accidentally, mishaps still happen, and at larger airlines, they happen several times a year and cost airlines tens of thousands to repack. In addition to being costly and causing great embarrassment among colleagues, being known as that crew who "blew a slide", the mistake poses a real danger to safety."
A British Airways steward reportedly triggered a plane's emergency slide by accident on their first day (@airlivenet/Twitter)Regardless of its size, commercial jets must be able to evacuate all passengers within 90 seconds. In order to make this possible, emergency slides are kept under enough pressure to allow them to inflate in seconds.
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If someone gets in the way of the contraption and are not expecting the deployment, the force could kill them. There are no deaths on record, but people have come close. When a Asiana Flight crashed landed in 2013, the impact caused two of the slides to deploy.
As a result a pair of flight attendants onboard ended up trapped beside the exits, with only the quick actions of one of their colleagues who used an axe to deflate the slide enough to save them.
Jay explained that there are strict and complicated protocols in place to avoid slides being deployed by accident. That doesn't mean that it can't happen however.
"'In my experience, inadvertent slide deployment was often caused by crew fatigue. For example, at my former airline, we operated many long night flights, and it was the airline's procedure that all doors were to be opened by the crew when they were on board. Generally, the slide deployments happened after these night flights," Jay added.
In June this year an evacuation inflatable slide blew up inside a plane and struck a flight attendant moments after an emergency landing. A Delta flight from JFK to Los on Angeles, which was carrying 168 passengers on Saturday, was forced to make an emergency landing in Utah, US, due to technical difficulties.
The pilot of the B767-300 announced the plane needed to land in Salt Lake City due to a problem with the backup system's temperature instrument, which was needed for icy conditions. The flight, which left New York, after 7am, landed safely and the passengers were told to leave the aircraft until the technical problem was fixed.
Once the temperature instrument was fixed, the plane was ready to take off again at around 1pm in Utah. But as passengers boarded the plane again, an inflatable slide at the rear of the aircraft was accidentally opened inside while it was still at the gate. The slide whacked a Delta crew member in the face and they were taken to hospital for treatment.
In January an employee on their first day with British Airways reportedly cost the airline £50,000 by accidentally inflating the emergency door.