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Comment by verytrivial | Hacker News Reader

> People with bags [...]

SHOULD NOT HAVE HAD THEIR BAGS. END OF STORY.

You say yourself the last survivor existed after 55 seconds. Did bag carriers cause even a two second delay? Could one extra person have crawled out from the smoke before succumbing? Perhaps that 12 year old girl?

You (and I mean anyone but if you fly I literally mean you) should not be making these sort of calculations when deciding to carry or not carry. Do not carry. Exit.

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A quote from the last survivor off the plane says that the aisle in front of them was completely clear as they left. In other words, any delays that might have happened weren't actually enough to harm or kill anyone in and of themselves.

Or someone ahead of there spent several seconds pushing bags out of the aisle, and not everyone realized the speed of evacuation was being determined by obstructions. Or, not every piece of luggage causes the same slowdown, and the first piece of luggage with significant delay caused the choke point for all of those who didn't make it out. Or a dozen other scenarios. We just don't know.

90% of highway traffic jams I drive through end up having no visible cause. That doesn't mean that there was never anything in the road causing a slowdown.

I don't follow; that may mean nobody left their bags sitting in the aisle, but surely it doesn't mean there weren't delays. I've often had to wait upwards of five minutes to deplane at the end of a flight while other passengers grab their belongings, despite the aisle being clear. Bags absolutely slow things down.

(Unless that survivor meant the aisle was free from other passengers, but that ... seems like an unlikely interpretation.)

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