Bizarre passengers

As an aviation enthusiast, I’ve been monitoring the recent Emirates crash-landing. It was a serious blow to the five-star airline, which prides itself on its enormous fleet, network and power, pumping millions of dollars into global advertising. Little surprise therefore that the media has not played up the incident as much as it would have, had it been an airline from a less powerful and moneyed country.

The Boeing 777-300 aircraft on its way to Dubai from Trivandrum burst into flames on the runway shortly after landing. Within minutes of the catastrophe, social media was already abounding with videos of smoke billowing out of the aircraft, shot by passengers from nearby airplanes and locations. Aviation geeks, who are known to tune into ATC radio recordings as a hobby, had even managed to intercept the conversation between the cockpit and ATC, and given it to pilots for diagnosis.

The most plausible theory doing the rounds is that the aircraft conducted a go-around, which is puzzling considering the plane’s wheels had almost touched the ground. (A go-around means aborting a landing at the last minute to climb up again and re-attempt a safe landing.) A sudden change of wind speed and direction (known as ‘wind shear’), coupled with high temperature (49 C) and low pressure, rendered the go-around futile. Another version on the grapevine had to do with an oven fault in the galley. An Indian minister, who flies on this sector frequently, tweeted that the Boeing 777 airplanes used for India are inferior to the ones used by the airline to fly to the West. While that might be the case, it would be unfair to attribute it as the reason for the disaster in question. An official report of what really happened is still awaited.

In all my research and reading of the incident, what has alarmed me the most is a nerve-chilling video shot by a passenger inside the aircraft. How and why one would even bother to pull out a camera phone in the middle of a crisis and shoot a video is beyond me. Anyway, while it is evident that the efficient cabin crew members are frantically and repeatedly instructing the passengers to evacuate, there isn’t as much urgency among some of the latter. Many are shockingly concerned about retrieving their handbags and laptops from the overhead bins, therefore blocking the main aisles for the sensible ones who want to make a dash for the emergency exit without their articles.

It amazes me as much as it amuses me to see such irrational, inadequate and inappropriate behaviour in an emergency situation. Is this an Indian thing or are we plain ill-equipped to tackle an aviation crisis? The mostly complacent passengers on this flight got out in the nick of time and are thankfully safe but there is no doubt that this was a near-miss incident. There is learning for the airline industry from this occurrence. The manner of enforcement of safety procedures by flight attendants perhaps needs to border between more ruthless and not-overly-panicky. In future, there should possibly be a way of an automatic locking of the overhead compartments in an emergency so that the passengers are left with little choice but to briskly attend to safety first. Above all, the incident is a reminder that deep beneath the veneer of forced smiles, plush seats and fancy cuisine, lies the scary unpredictability of nature and technology. No one is above that. Not even Emirates.

Tailpiece

Much sarcasm greeted the pictures of David Cameron in a pair of £225 swimming trunks. I suppose a man who has just lost his job and has more blubber than a whale needs garish swimwear to take attention away from his belly.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 11^th, 2016.

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