After dramatic video of an American airlines flight Empty on a Denver runway Last month, Illinois’s Sen Tammy Duckworth is sending a letter to the new FAA Administrator Brian Bedford seeking answers on the evacuation safety.
“FAA requires a withdrawal standard that today reflects the reality of the flight,” Duckworth in a statement explained CBS News. “American people are worth knowing whether the FAA is taking this responsibility seriously and complying with the law to ensure that the flight can be safely evacuated from the aircraft during the emergency.”
Duckworth is concerned about ranking democrats on the Senate Aviation sub -committee, the ability to vacate an airline in 90 seconds or less.
“The video showed the passengers exiting with a carry-on bag and, according to at least one passenger, the process of 10 to 15 minutes was estimated to be more than 10 times from the FAA’s 90-second withdrawal standard,” he wrote to Bedford in his letter.
The senator is seeking details about three recent withdrawal.
FAA and National Transportation Safety Board are currently investigating after American Airlines Flight 3023, traveling from Denver to Miami, experienced landing gear issues during takeoff with 173 passengers and six crew members. Boeing 737 Max 8 was going about 150 mph when pilots were slammed on a break. Since the emergency exhaust slide was used to evacuate the passengers, the flames could be seen from the landing gear on 26 July.
“We heard a loud bounce, and I said ‘it’s not good,” said passenger Mark Tsurkis. “Most people became safely empty, except some people who decided to take their belongings with them and, you know that others threatened and put them in danger.”
In April, A Delta A330 in Orlando experiences an engine fireTo motivate passengers to vacate. Kyle Baker, who was sitting in Row 35, said that as soon as people “fire!”
“The engine was on fire,” Baker at that time told CBS News senior transport correspondent Chris Van Cleve. ,[It] It was a little scary … just had never happened to me before. Start thinking, like, okay, what are the next stages. Trying to remain calm. ,
The incident also inspired the FAA investigation.
And in March, another American Airlines Boeing 737 experiences fire Denver stems from an engine issue parked at a gate at International Airport. Passengers filled the aircraft wing to avoid smoke.
“Everyone was screaming,” a fire is on fire. “Helen President, who was in the plane, remembered. “Really at the gate and I was screaming, ‘Open the doors.”
FAA and NTSB are looking into the fire.
“While the FAA has not yet revealed how much time in the referenced passenger withdrawal, these incidents once again raise serious questions about the FAA’s 90-second withdrawal standard as well as FAA’s perceptions about how withdrawals occur in real-world conditions (such as every passenger will comply with the directions of the bag without carrying a bag).
She wants the FAA to disclose how long the withdrawal took place and how many passengers took their bags with them, as well as how many children, senior and disabled passengers in each flight.
The senator is also demanding an update on withdrawal testing that the Congress completed the FAA within one year of the FAA’s revaluation bill passing. That time limit was passed in May. The updated test was to change a series of FAA tests conducted in 2019 that included a real -world landscape in the cabin and the passengers who were children, senior or not able to be able to.
Last year, Duckworth told CBS News that she could not believe that she could get off an aircraft during the Emergency in less than 90 seconds.
Dakworth said, “There is no confidence at all, not at all confident. I often fly where I am not wearing both my artificial legs.” “I don’t think it is realistic now. … Do a real test and let’s see what the realistic standard is.”
Duckworth asked the FAA to respond to his letter by 12 August.
“We need answers. Current [plane] Standards of withdrawal, are they enough? It has been almost 35 years since those standards were published. ,
Contributed to this report.
