On the run so need to make this quick. As some of you know, I am a member of the SAE S9 Cabin Safety committee. We write the standards which are used by the FAA and airlines to develop
e the cabin briefings and everything else dealing with safety and safety equipment in the cabin except for seats. The recommendation is for FAs to aggressively remind pax to not take anything with them in an evac. As this episode shows, people don't listen well. :-( This evac, along with others will be topic of conversation at the next S9 meeting, you can be sure of it.

A lot of really bright folks have tried to come up with solutions, FAA CAMI in Oklahoma City has run hundreds, if not thousands, of evacs using their cabin simulator. They just dedicated a new one which will allow even better simulations. We have learned a lot from them and from live evacs. It is much better today and it used to be. But, ultimately, the problem is human nature. Trying to circumvent human nature is one of the toughest challengers we face in aviation safety.

Non-starters are auto-locking bins. Too much weight, too many moving parts, too much to go wrong. Pax will revolt if unable to take their carry-on. As noted, those of us who travel for a living will not pack anything we can't do without. For me that otfen means a suit and two days of clothing, etc. I can't even keep track of how often my luggage doesn't arrive when I do, and often take a day or more to arrive. Twice in the last 5 years it never showed up...ever!

When they recently tried to reduce the size of carry-on bags, Congress was inundated with calls, emails and letters. Not likely to happen.

The certification 90-second evac test in the dark is a standard, it measures a baseline, nothing more, it isn't reality. And, it is a lot tougher than it looks to meet it. So many people end up injured in these tests, a lot of folks want to kill it and just use computer simulations. So far the FAA has said no. Some real evacs are quicker, some are slower, but it is extremely rare in contemporary history to take so long that anyone dies.

Gotta run, just returned home on a flight late last night, have to finish some documentation and pack for a 5:00 AM flight tomorrow. Be days before I can check back in.

Carry on.... (baaaad pun)