> Rushing the door in a panic would have done nobody any good.
No one's suggesting this. You can both leave the plane in a calm manner and leave your bags behind. As far as I'm concerned, there's no good reason to take your bag unless it's actively obstructing the way out -- which, in fairness, could well be what's happened here.
Off-hand, some reasons not to: the aisles have limited capacity, and more bags in the aisles mean fewer people can be queueing ready to get off. It will take longer to figure out how to use the slide if you want to go down it with your bag, especially if the bag is heavy or large. The bag might have sharp corners which could damage the slide (if I remember rightly, people are advised to remove sharp-heeled shoes for this reason).
Seconds count in situations like this. I think people have taken the "keep calm" message to heart and, if anything, need to be taught to treat this kind of thing more seriously. The reason I mention this is that I'm reminded of the bystander effect:
> The students were placed in a room-either alone, with two strangers or with three strangers to complete a questionnaire while they waited for the experimenter to return. While they were completing the questionnaire smoke was pumped into the room through a wall vent to simulate an emergency. When students were working alone they noticed the smoke almost immediately (within 5 seconds). However, students that were working in groups took longer (up to 20 seconds) to notice the smoke.
These peoples lives could have been in imminent danger, but they might waste precious seconds to leaving the plane because of social pressures (e.g. someone sees one person taking their bag, so thinks it's okay to do so themselves, or subconsciously thinks the situation is not that serious).
People should keep calm, but they should also know to treat the situation as it is -- an emergency. But as I say, this is all speculation, and may not be relevant at all in this specific instance. I just hope everyone's okay.
> Off-hand, some reasons not to: the aisles have limited capacity, and more bags in the aisles mean fewer people can be queueing ready to get off.
I can see what you're saying but "number of people queued in the aisles" isn't an important measurement at all. The important thing would how much the overall rate of passage through the exits is affected by the people who grabbed their bags.
I expect the rate of passage through those exits has a lot to do with what people do when they reach the bottom of the slide. That certainly might be affected by what they're carrying, but then again, people might have simply been tossing their bags over the side. You can't rely too heavily on a single photograph to analyse these things.
> I think people have taken the "keep calm" message to heart and, if anything, need to be taught to treat this kind of thing more seriously.
The alternatives are to keep calm or panic. I guess "seriousness" is subjective but when it comes to calmness vs. panic, I know which alternative I'd prefer the people around me to exhibit in an emergency. Particularly in a confined space. How is this even an argument?
Never mind the whole issue of people grabbing their bags. That plane was rather seriously on fire and the people in the original photograph don't appear to be very concerned about moving away from it. Strange.
No one's suggesting this. You can both leave the plane in a calm manner and leave your bags behind. As far as I'm concerned, there's no good reason to take your bag unless it's actively obstructing the way out -- which, in fairness, could well be what's happened here.
Off-hand, some reasons not to: the aisles have limited capacity, and more bags in the aisles mean fewer people can be queueing ready to get off. It will take longer to figure out how to use the slide if you want to go down it with your bag, especially if the bag is heavy or large. The bag might have sharp corners which could damage the slide (if I remember rightly, people are advised to remove sharp-heeled shoes for this reason).
Seconds count in situations like this. I think people have taken the "keep calm" message to heart and, if anything, need to be taught to treat this kind of thing more seriously. The reason I mention this is that I'm reminded of the bystander effect:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect#Emergency_vers...
e.g.
> The students were placed in a room-either alone, with two strangers or with three strangers to complete a questionnaire while they waited for the experimenter to return. While they were completing the questionnaire smoke was pumped into the room through a wall vent to simulate an emergency. When students were working alone they noticed the smoke almost immediately (within 5 seconds). However, students that were working in groups took longer (up to 20 seconds) to notice the smoke.
These peoples lives could have been in imminent danger, but they might waste precious seconds to leaving the plane because of social pressures (e.g. someone sees one person taking their bag, so thinks it's okay to do so themselves, or subconsciously thinks the situation is not that serious).
People should keep calm, but they should also know to treat the situation as it is -- an emergency. But as I say, this is all speculation, and may not be relevant at all in this specific instance. I just hope everyone's okay.