Everyone in commercial aviation, and many experienced travelers, likely realize that safety is the primary function of the cabin crew. I would wager, however, that only a small fraction of that group ever has thought of flight attendants as on-call firefighters, as the first line of defense against in-flight fires in the cabin. But that is how U.S. National Transportation Safety Board Chairman Christopher A. Hart described cabin crew in his keynote address to the International Air Transport Association (IATA) Cabin Operations Safety Conference in May, and to be honest, the description, while obviously accurate, surprised me a little. Like many, I had never thought of flight attendants in that way, but it is clear that is the view the industry needs to take.
During his remarks, Hart called for robust fire fighting training for cabin crews. He asked the audience to think of how often aircraft rescue and fire fighting (ARFF) personnel participate in drills, and then he said: “ARFF do…
