33 injured in Airbus evacuation drill, “a great success!”
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In a nighttime drill, 873 volunteers scrambled out of a parked Airbus super-ultra-mega-jumbo A380 in 80 seconds, ten seconds faster than the target. One person broke a leg, and 32 others suffered “friction burns.” Ouch. This was called “a great success.” (It was certainly better than the 1991 test of a McDonnell-Douglas MD-11, during which an unfortunate volunteer broke her neck and was left paralyzed.)
Apparently, Airbus engineers were worried that passengers would balk at jumping onto the slides from the upper level of the aircraft. It’s a long drop. This didn’t turn out to be an issue in the laboratory setting of the test, but if the “friction burns” are any indication, then it might be nice to add a little something to slide surfaces to make the trip down a little easier…
(image: Airbus)
tags: travel | air travel | Airbus A380
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May 4th, 2007 at 8:17 am |
[…] subscribe to the latest posts via RSS or e-mail. Thanks for visiting!Just over a year ago, Airbus tested its evacuation of the Airbus A380. It went faster than expected, with “only” one broken leg and 32 […]