On Saturday afternoon, an American Airlines flight from Denver to Miami turned into a full-blown emergency. The video (embedded below) of the evacuation, left me and many flight attendants stunned.
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As the Boeing 737 MAX 8 began its takeoff roll, passengers heard a loud bang followed by flames outside the cabin window. The plane screeched to a stop and emergency slides were deployed as 173 passengers and six crew members evacuated onto the runway.
According to American Airlines and the FAA, the aircraft experienced blown tires and a brake fire, likely caused by intense deceleration. Thankfully the Denver Fire Department was ready on the scene quickly to extinguish the flames. One passenger was hospitalized with a minor injury and five others were evaluated at the scene.
But here’s what’s most shocking about this story and what you’ll clearly see in the video: dozens of passengers evacuated with their carry-on luggage and dragged duffel bags down the inflatable slide. One person even carried a kid and a suitcase at the same time.
What Happened Onboard
Two teen passengers, Shay Armistead and Margaret Gustafson, both headed to Chile for a ski trip, shared their terrifying accounts with CNN. They described intense shaking, swerving on the runway and the moment they realized something was on fire.
Passengers panicked. One reportedly yelled, “We’re all gonna die.” Another refused to follow crew instructions. The evacuation reportedly took 10 to 15 minutes which, in an emergency, is way too long. The FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) mandates that all passengers must be able to evacuate an aircraft within 90 seconds.
Internet Reacts: “Fine Them All”
Flight attendants and aviation pros across the internet are furious and rightly so. Comments on social media ranged from: “They should be fined or arrested” to: “Proof that no one watches the safety demo.”
One FA wrote, “as a flight attendant I’m taking the luggage and throwing it out. I’m not about to let you damage a slide and prevent others from getting out safely.”
Another added, “the guy with the luggage fell with his kid. This is what’s wrong with society.”
Emergencies like this are not the time to grab your belongings. FAA guidelines are clear: leave all carry-ons behind. Dragging a bag can rip the slide, block exits, injure other passengers or delay evacuations, turning a survivable situation into a tragedy.
This incident serves as a sobering reminder: pay attention to the safety demo, trust the crew and leave your stuff behind. No suitcase is worth someone’s life.
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That is absolutely crazy. Get you bodies of the plane and help those it need assistance. Not even one person staying to assist people at the bottom of the slide. All of you “big strong men” should be ashamed, I don’t want to hear any of you saying you were heroes.
My first reaction when watching the video on KABC this morning was to rewind and watch it again out of disbelief. Yep, thoughtless jerks with zero concern for anyone else’s safety were jumping the slide with their junk in tow! I’ve slid down these emergency shutes as part of a CERT training program. They’re basically like the slides on a kid’s inflatable bounce house; they rip easily.
I pray that self-centered jerks like Dave get placed on Do Not Fly lists before they ever have a chance to kill dozens of passengers stuck behind them on a burning plane. Enjoy your precious electronic equipment, you sad little incel.
Dave, I guess your several thousand dollars is worth more than someone’s life? So I also expect if a family member needed a $10k operation to save his life, you would pass. If everyone took 15 seconds to get luggage down, the last person to exit would likely have to wait about 5 minutes longer than if everyone got up and just exited. Yes, this flight was did not end up as a huge fire – but one never knows.
Considering the airline policy is “lol here’s 100 bucks, get lost idiot” whenever literally anything happens to your luggage, and it takes time for people to move their butts out of narrow seats and tiny aisles because butts are money and luggage isn’t, well… Good luck getting me to not take my several thousand dollars worth of electronics with me off the plane. Carry-on roller bag, nah. Backpack full of important stuff including meds that I need? Yeah. If airlines can’t make an emergency slide that handles that stuff, they should reconsider their commitment to saving lives instead of saving money.
You can put it in a safety demo all you want, but that’s human nature to protect your stuff and that’s not a new psychological concept and will likely never change. Airplanes are just becoming more unsafe as we try to bleed every plane for as much profit as possible like a greedy little Ferengi executive. This is also why you should basically never pack anything valuable in a suitcase that’s going on a plane. I just think it’s poor form to blame the passengers for something that’s a trickle-down problem that starts in the boardroom and ends with garbage quality planes that makes everyone afraid for their stuff more than their lives.