Crashing, Burning Planes Don’t Stop Passengers from Grabbing Their Luggage

If you lose your ID or any other official documents in India, everyone knows how much of a hassle it is going to be to get these documents reissued. Of course the possibility of bribes to move the papers. Insurance claims for lost baggage? I wouldn't rely on it. It might take them a while to save up to buy whatever they might have in their bags too. Laptops, tablets etc. They probably don't earn that much to begin with. This is probably what ran through their minds.

Yes, lives are more important in the end and every second counts in such a scenario. But as an individual they might think - hey, it takes a few seconds to grab my bag and jump out. That would save me SO much trouble. Unfortunately that's what everyone thinks and in the end everyone goes for their bags and waste precious time.

I live in a (modern, 4-floor, built in 2008, steel and concrete) building with 145 apartments. We have about 2 or 3 fire alarms a year because late-20s professionals don’t understand that pouring oil into a pan heated on high for 20 minutes does nothing but generate a massive amount of smoke. Though in 7 years, we’ve had 3 actual fires. One serious enough to pop the glycerin disk of a sprinkler head (and cause ~$1M in water damage from the ~5000 gallons it pumped out before it was turned off, compared to about $20-30K in fire damage).

I am the building’s “unofficial first responder”. I try to find it, so I can direct fire fighters to it when they arrive 8 minutes later, in the hopes of it being dealt with before a sprinkler head pops and makes the lives of many of the units' neighbors miserable for the next few months (because water damage and related insurance claims). Once, management was still here, and we used the skeleton key to access the unit and I actually put it out myself with an extinguisher (and killed the breakers to the stove). As I’m running through the hall, I have to tell people peering out their doors to “get out now, fire alarm”, and that no, they can’t take the elevator (because they’re now parked) and they need to take stairs.

When there are firefighters going into the building, with hoses, and putting up ladders, you have people in neighboring apartments watching... from the windows inside their apartments. Until the fire department knocks on their doors and screams at them, through a megaphone, to get out.

Management commented to me that during the fire alarms with actual fires (which granted, were small), ~30% of people (~80-90 people) refused to leave. That's a hell of a potential burden in the event of a serious fire to put on the firefighters.

There have been studies done that show if you're in the middle of a crisis with bystanders, it's important to single them out and call for their direct responsibility:

"You in the green shirt, call the police now!"

Otherwise, responsibility distributes evenly among the group with no one player having enough impetus to affect change.

People can act bizarrely in a crisis. In situations like this where there is panic and the adrenaline starts pumping, rational thought gets tampered down and instinct and training takes over. Which is actually a great survival mechanism, but we don't really have any instincts, and very few people are actually trained for emergencies like this. What we are trained to do is not forget our luggage when leaving the plane.

Assuming this is the case (see above warning), no amount of fines or prosecution will really help, because we're dealing with people's subconscious. People won't internalize that negative reinforcement unless it actually happens to them, and how often are people in plane crashes? Maybe having plane evacuation drills would help, but I don't know how practical that is.

Maybe the reasonable thing is to require small separate handbag with all the valuables.

And there are more things which prevent fast evacuation. Are we going to ban them as well?:

- catering trolleys

- less mobile persons

- high heels

The problem is, you aren't just delaying yourself by 1 second, you're also delaying the other 100 people behind you by 1 second. And if you multiply the risks involved by 100, the outcome of the cost-benefit analysis changes dramatically.

We could yell at people for being too dumb to do the "right thing", but let's be honest, this isn't the kind of issue that will filter down to everyone in society. Unless it makes the front page of NYTimes or CNN, the vast majority of people will never get to hear your moral lectures and explanations. And airlines don't want to unduly alarm their passengers on the vast majority of flights which won't have problems, so they aren't going to spend too much effort on this either. The best solution here is some simple technology. Equip all the overhead bins with central locks, so that once a switch is flipped, it's impossible for a passenger to get them open. This way, people won't even have the chance to grab their luggage, and we wouldn't have to sit here having this discussion.

It would be much more effective than the threat of a fine.

At that point, a compromise is needed... probably smaller bags and packs that fit under the seat should be allowed and should be incorporated in the safety tests, but certainly opening up the overhead bins in an emergency should definitely be fined.

People end up not wanting to make a stupid mistake where they leave their passports, money, laptops behind just because of a false alarm.

If they knew what they know later, they'd act differently. But in the moment, it's hard to predict if it's going to be a big deal or a minor thing.

Most of these reasons are listed in these set of storified tweets https://storify.com/AnonDesi/conversation-with-peegeekay-mad...

I urge everyone to please read the tweets in the link I posted, as it gives you a totally different perspective as to why people behaved this way.

One other reason, is the fact that a plane flying from India is filled with people who speak at least 10 to 15 different languages (native langauge).

Its possible that those who didnt get the passenger safety instructions in the language they are comfortable with, just didn't even know what to do under such distress!

Really the endpoint is the same. Humans panic.

I would say no. Despite it being somewhat logical, I think it is unreasonable to believe that people are rational agents and won't act emotionally in a state of emergency.

So don't get upset that people aren't following your directions.

I can't honestly say I wouldn't grab my backpack from the floor, if the situation allowed, but I am fairly convinced it won't be delaying my departure from a burning aircraft. The 82 year old lady in row 8, who had to be wheelchaired onto the plane or perhaps the mother/father trying to juggle one or more screaming children might be a more serious concern.

I'm not sure. There are psychologists who claim that people who have to disembark start their "leave a plane" program, and that includes taking ones luggage, because that program has worked well for them zillions of times.

Chapter 7 of the referenced https://app.ntsb.gov/doclib/safetystudies/SS0001.pdf gives that theory some credence. Quote:

"Of the 419 passengers who reported that they carried on bags, 208 (nearly 50 percent) reported attempting to remove a bag during their evacuation. The primary reason that passengers stated for grabbing their bags was for money, wallet, or credit cards (111 passengers). Other reasons included job items (65), keys (61), and medicines (51). Most passengers exited the airplane with their bags"

So, urges that normally are top of the list (don't lose your wallet or keys) seem to get precedence over a directly life-threatening but unfamiliar one (you're in a burning plane)

Given that, I doubt a technical solution such as a huge fine will have much effect.

It's a long story but the relevant parts are:

1 - I broke the rules and pocketed my passport with 200 US dollars folded into it. Which meant when the plane was on the ground and they were figuring out what to do with all these passengers I was able to get out, get someone to let me back onto the plane for my stuff, and get myself on another flight. I'd do that again, but I would not bring my phone (too dangerous when whizzing down that slide).

2 - Most people don't realize that the flight attendants are mainly there for safety and all that drink crud etc is just to keep the swells distracted and under control. I think the very safety of flight and the rareness of incident means people don't bother to consider what they'd do in an accident and so kid of go into autopilot.

There were many years when I worried what to do about my computer, but these days everything is backed up into the cloud so I can afford to lose it in a fire.

BTW despite all the excitement the amount of view was minimal and I (as a total non-expert) think they could have skipped the evacuation. I have read that the FAA is satisfied if you slide down and break your ankle -- but don't burn to death.

[1] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-36977903

Personally, I think treating this issue in a black and white manner is a mistake. I think that each individual's judgement should be better respected, acknowledging the limits of central control.

Then I have a vision of scrambling over the tops of seats to get out of a crash incident. Luggage isn't a part of that vision.

Then I go back to reading.

No, smoking is not allowed because people like to have an out-group they can hate, and it is currently politically-correct to hate smokers. Inhaling a little smoke on a plane ride is annoying (so, too, body odour …), but it doesn't negatively impact anyone's health. So-called 'secondhand smoke' is junk science, pure and simple: no more factual than phrenology.