Have you ever looked around during an airline flight attendant’s passenger safety briefing and noticed how few passengers were actually paying attention to the life-saving information being presented? Forget about trying to hear it yourself. The fellow next to you is explaining about his big sales presentation to be made tomorrow morning in Albuquerque. The unconcerned fellow with the appointment in New Mexico has heard
all the safety stuff before, and he assumes that you have no interest in it either. It’s fair to wonder how he’d respond if a cabin evacuation indeed were necessary, or if the oxygen masks suddenly deployed. One might wonder: Has he ever really heard the information? Maybe he just thinks he listened to the briefing at some point in the distant past. And that’s why the flight attendants follow up with an examination of seatback positions and floor space obstruction, leaving nothing to chance.
As a general aviation pilot, there’s no flight attendant to baby-sit the cabin and relieve you of the obligation to make sure your passengers could get out of your aircraft in a hurry if the need arose. A sudden need for egress is not such a rare thing. And it’s not always just a simple case of opening the doors and stepping out onto the ground. Runway overruns or ground loops often end up with the aircraft upside down or perched on fewer than all the original landing gear. Controlled flight into terrain or a forced landing off airport can produce a suddenly wingless aircraft wedged tightly between trees or boulders. Add a punctured fuel tank or severed fuel line during the impact sequence; now there’s a risk of post-crash fire.
That’s why you don’t just show the passengers how you open and close the cockpit doors and leave it at that. Have them practice a time or two until you are really satisfied. That’s in the spirit of the performance and knowledge demonstration that your primary training and your practical test demand of you. As stated in the practical test standards for the private pilot certificate, you are expected to brief your aircraft’s occupants “on the use of safety belts, shoulder harnesses, doors and emergency procedures.” And speaking of the occupants, make extra certain that the folks in the back seats are paying attention too, even though the door handles may not be positioned within their easy reach. During a safety briefing there may be uncomfortable grins or wisecracks, but that’s a small price to pay for having a crew of knowledgeable passengers on board, so persevere.
It doesn’t take an accident to require an aircraft to be evacuated. What pilot hasn’t had difficulty starting an aircraft engine from time to time? That might be all that’s needed to necessitate a calm but speedy exit. On August 25, 2009, a Cessna 177B was consumed by fire after the pilot, who planned to fly from Chandler, Arizona, to Tucson, was unable to restart the engine after dropping off a passenger and spending about a half-hour on the ground. This was despite multiple attempts, each time priming a bit more, as related in the National Transportation Safety Board online summary. “The pilot stated that on the first attempt to start the engine it failed to start, and that he did not prime it. On the second start attempt the pilot gave the engine one stroke of prime, on the third attempt he gave it two strokes of prime, and on the fourth attempt he gave it three strokes of prime; each attempt to start the engine was unsuccessful.
“The pilot revealed he then called his flight instructor, who advised him to use the ‘flooded’ procedure. The pilot tried the procedure but was still unable to start the engine. The pilot stated that after securing the engine, ‘…I tried to go through the checklist to make certain that I didn’t do anything wrong. While I was going through the checklist I heard a popping sound, and lifting up my head I saw dark smoke coming out from the engine, and soon after I saw fire too, so I exited the aircraft.'” Emergency responders put out the fire, but now another hazard arose. The blaze reignited—along with sudden engine start—resulting in the aircraft’s destruction.
If a pilot must always be wary of fire on engine start, the risk of fire after an off-airport landing also lurks to mar an otherwise-successful emergency landing. That’s one reason why a simulation of such checklist items as getting a door open and getting the fuel shut off are among procedures you should practice and commit to memory after your CFI retards the throttle and announces “Engine failure.” But even conscientious practice doesn’t come close to presenting you with predicaments like that faced by the pilot of a Grumman American AA1-B in Whitney, Texas, on August 3, 2009: getting safely out of an upside-down aircraft in a field before it could burst into flames. Which it did. The sequence began shortly after the pilot—who had spent some time practicing takeoffs and landings, and refueled, and done a little sightseeing—took off again. “Shortly after takeoff the engine began to run rough as if it had a fouled plug. While turning to downwind the engine began to shake violently and the rpms and altitude were decreasing. The pilot selected a field and performed a soft-field landing. During the landing rollout the airplane nosed over and came to rest in an inverted position. The pilot was able to exit the airplane unassisted. Moments later the airplane was engulfed in flames.”
Another caution: Don’t write off “engulfed in flames” as a simple catch-phrase to describe any aircraft fire. An airplane may not take long to disappear once that fire gets going. In the AOPA Air Safety Foundation’s 2009 Nall Report on “Accident Trends and Factors,” look up the summary of a loss-of-control accident during a bounced-landing and go-around involving a twin-engine Cessna 441 in Sunriver, Oregon. The event report presents witnesses’ observations that at the end of the accident sequence, “The aircraft rolled right, striking a tree, and then the ground. It was consumed by fire within four minutes.”
Chances are that when you start taking passengers for airplane rides, they’ll be thoroughly engrossed in the experience, hanging on your every word, complying readily with your every request and instruction. But that depends a lot on you and your attitude about wielding the authority and responsibility of pilot in command. Take advantage of that opportunity to make a first impression in the name of safety. Who knows? The effect may even carry over onto your passengers’ next airline flight, and its safety briefing.
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