In 90 commercial jet evacuations from 1961–2011, on average about half the available exits were used, and in only one case were all the available exits used. Those were among the findings presented by Fons Schaefers of SGI Aviation at the 2nd International Cabin Safety Conference in Amsterdam, Netherlands, in October.1
“All these accidents were survivable but life-threatening because of fire or submersion in water,” Schaefers said. “In situations requiring urgent evacuation, exits can make the difference between life and death. But how often are exits used in such critical situations?”
Surprisingly few attempts have been made to analyze exit usage in relevant accidents, he said. The Amsterdam presentation was an update of a similar presentation given in 1994, adding data from 1993–2011.
Accidents meeting the criteria for inclusion in his latest study database totaled 150.2 Of those, the reports for about 90 accidents included enough information to d…
