Following the dramatic video of an American Airlines flight evacuating on a Denver runway last month, Sen. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois is sending a letter to new FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford demanding answers on evacuation safety.
“The FAA needs an evacuation standard that reflects the reality of flying today,” Duckworth told CBS News in a statement. “The American people deserve to know whether the FAA is taking this responsibility seriously and complying with the law to ensure the flying public can be safely evacuated from an aircraft during an emergency.”
Duckworth, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Aviation Subcommittee, is concerned about the ability to evacuate an airliner in 90 seconds or less.
“Video showed passengers exiting with carry-on bags and, according to at least one passenger, the process took 10 to 15 minutes — the latter estimate exceeding FAA’s 90 second evacuation standard by 10 times,” she wrote in her letter to Bedford.
The senator is seeking details about three recent evacuations.
The FAA and National Transportation Safety Board are currently investigating after American Airlines Flight 3023, traveling from Denver to Miami, experienced a landing gear issue during takeoff with 173 passengers and six crew members on board. The Boeing 737 Max 8 was going nearly 150 mph when the pilots slammed on the brakes. As passengers used emergency exit slides to evacuate, flames could be seen coming from the landing gear on July 26.
“We heard a loud boom, and I said ‘That’s not good,'” passenger Mark Tsurkis recounted. “Most of the people evacuated safely, except a few people who decided to take their luggage with them and that kind of, you know, that endangered others and endangered them.”
In April, a Delta A330 in Orlando experienced an engine fire, prompting passengers to evacuate. Kyle Becker, who was sitting in row 35, said he opened the window as soon as he heard people yell “fire!”
“There was a fire on the engine,” Becker told CBS News at the time. “[It] was a little scary… just never had happened to me before. Start thinking, like, OK, what are the next steps. Trying to remain calm.”
This incident also prompted an FAA investigation.
And in March, another American Airlines Boeing 737 experienced a fire stemming from an engine issue while it was parked at a gate at Denver International Airport. Passengers filled the wing of the plane trying to escape the smoke.
“Everyone was screaming, ‘There’s a fire. There’s a fire,'” Helen Prager, who was on the plane, recalled. “Literally at the gate and I was screaming, ‘Get the doors open.'”
The FAA and NTSB are looking into the fire.
“While FAA has yet to disclose how long any of the referenced passenger evacuations took, these incidents once again…
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