Source: Flight Global
For an organisation as obsessed with controlling its processes as a major commercial airframer, a full-scale evacuation test of one of its aircraft is about as horribly uncontrolled as life can be.
Suddenly, years of research and engineering, plus billions of dollars of investment, are at the mercy of any one of hundreds of untrained volunteers.
One human misstep, an unexpected claustrophobic reaction, or one act of baffling stupidity, and the manufacturer could find itself facing implacable regulators who decline to approve the aircraft.
The best scenario then is that it all has to be done again; the worst, that failure strikes once more and a redesign delays the programme by months while millions of dollars bleed away.
Put those risks alongside the proven safety hazard to the participants and never has the dilemma been more acute than for Airbus and the European and US regulators overseeing A380 certification.
Consideration was given to modelling the evacuation instead, but the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) and the US Federal Aviation Administration decided that the unprecedented size of the aircraft, and its novel twin-deck configuration, made a live evacuation test unavoidable.
The underlying concept of the A380 evacuation is simple: each of the two decks is treated as a separate, conventional aircraft cabin that in theory can be cleared in the requisite 90s – as in any other type. For rule-making purposes, however, the whole aircraft still has to be evacuated in that time.
Apart from the sheer numbers involved, there are at least three significant differences from other evacuations: the physical and psychological effects of the unprecedented height of the upper-deck slides; the existence of a wide staircase permitting movement between the decks with unpredictable consequences; and the increased possibility of interference between the numerous fleeing passengers as they try to run away from the aircraft.
For an organisation as obsessed with controlling its processes as a major commercial airframer, a full-scale evacuation test of one of its aircraft is about as horribly uncontrolled as life can be.
Suddenly, years of research and engineering, plus billions of dollars of investment, are at the mercy of any one of hundreds of untrained volunteers.
One human misstep, an unexpected claustrophobic reaction, or one act of baffling stupidity, and the manufacturer could find itself facing implacable regulators who decline to approve the aircraft.
The best scenario then is that it all has to be done again; the worst, that failure strikes once more and a redesign delays the programme by months while millions of dollars bleed away.
Put those risks alongside the proven safety hazard to the participants and never has the dilemma been more acute than for Airbus and the European and US regulators overseeing A380 certification.
Consideration was given to modelling the evacuation instead, but the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) and the US Federal Aviation Administration decided that the unprecedented size of the aircraft, and its novel twin-deck configuration, made a live evacuation test unavoidable.
The underlying concept of the A380 evacuation is simple: each of the two decks is treated as a separate, conventional aircraft cabin that in theory can be cleared in the requisite 90s – as in any other type. For rule-making purposes, however, the whole aircraft still has to be evacuated in that time.
Apart from the sheer numbers involved, there are at least three significant differences from other evacuations: the physical and psychological effects of the unprecedented height of the upper-deck slides; the existence of a wide staircase permitting movement between the decks with unpredictable consequences; and the increased possibility of interference between the numerous fleeing passengers as they try to run away from the aircraft.
