For the global community of cabin safety specialists, the June 2013 final report1 by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) on the Qantas Flight 32 (QF32) accident provides a missing piece — the official framework and conclusions — needed to interpret the many eyewitness accounts of injury-prevention factors. One such account is a November 2011 AeroSafety World video interview with the flight’s cabin service manager (CSM), Michael von Reth.2,3
For much of the event, he became the principal source of information for the passengers in the aftermath of the uncontained engine failure. The captain and CSM each relied on their backgrounds for extended periods to imagine the likely situation of the other without direct knowledge.
The cabin crew’s alarm-saturated working conditions, imperfect/confusing information, resilient critical thinking and emergency responses had parallels to those of the flight crew, including overriding standard operatin…
