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Comment by conistonwater | Hacker News Reader

> The passengers report they are still on board of the aircraft about 2 hours after landing because the airport does not have stairs to accommodate the A380.

Does anybody know how this works? Why not just use any old ladder?

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Risk to the passengers. If there is no imminent risk then it is better to wait for the right device than to risk passengers falling off ladders from 10 meters and higher, the A380 is a huge plane and those doors are pretty high up.

The A380 is high enough that the ladders (technically airstairs) available probably couldn't even reach the doors.

http://www.tips.si/pdf/Door-Sill-Heights-Passenger-Stairs-24...

Interestingly enough, an A330/340 can be even higher, but only slightly (~30cm).

Makes sense, but I wonder what they'll end up doing. Nobody's going to be driving a set of A380 compatible air stairs to Goose Bay.

You're gonna get hop ons

They can bring a fire ladder.

They could also use the self-inflatable chutes, but those are likely to create injuries, so they are an option of last resort.

At first I was surprised they didn't use the emergency slides, but I suppose once the aircraft is on the ground and there's no evidence of a fire or similar, it's safe so there's no immediate need to deplane the passengers.

Ftom all the videos of planes I've seen, I think slides are deployed only when fire is involved. Since the damaged engine didn't start any fire for 2 hours, the pilots probabaly knew there was no need to deploy the slides when they landed.

The risk of minor injury (sprains, etc.) is pretty high for slides and there is some risk of serious injury (broken bones and worse). They are used when the alternative risk is death.

It doesn't seem fair to use the rate of injury during an emergency evacuation as a measure of what could be achieved with the same slides under non-emergency conditions.

The height is the same, and that's where those injuries come from. Those slides aren't like playground slides at all --- they are very, very high, and especially so on an A380.

Also, they need to be replaced if used, which costs extra time and money.

Basically, they are more like an airbag on a car.

My guess? Liability.

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