There was another airplane crash in Canada. I thought at first a minor one. Two airplanes - one empty, and one full of passengers - bumped on the ground at the airport. The empty one burst into flames and the one full of passengers did not. This should have been an easy thing to deal with. The worst should have been the the tourists in shorts sliding down the escape slides. But it wasn’t.
People tried to bring their hand luggage.
Things started out pretty calm and people listened to the flight attendants, and started evacuating the airplane. But the the lines stalled as people tried to get their hand luggage. When you are cold, and scared, and under the stress of evacuating an airplane - especially when you can see and smell smoke, and the line stalls, people panic and get more scared. The line continues to go slow due to the extra stuff to carry, and then there is a pause at the door - how do you jump / step into the slide when you have luggage? So think of the people behind the asshole with the luggage - are they thinking maybe they won’t survive since things are now moving so slow? Do they smell even more smoke now? I bet they are very scared and not happy with the luggage scumbag.
The sad thing is the person that is grabbing the hand luggage is not only endangering all of the people behind them, but also themselves. Life is precious. If you are the person grabbing your luggage, and you get out, but not the people behind you, I would assume (hope) you would feel not very good.
Life is worth fighting for. Life is worth surviving. So if you are in an airplane down situation, listen to the flight attendants and make sure you save yourself, and the person in front and behind you, and don’t be the reason that more people die.
Michael
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