While plush and pleasant Cabin interiors are pleasing for airline customers to choose a particular air carrier brand, airline companies and OEMs must ensure that cabin safety and airworthiness are assured in the delivery and acceptance of a product, over and above the cosmetics. Here every element must pass the regulator-mandated tests. This compliance and airworthiness very much mean that this is necessary for a business to even operate. Survivability is key and cabin safety mandated standards if not adhered to, hampers airworthiness the main eligibility criteria for permission being granted for operating.
Air travel is being made safer with every new generation and variant of aircraft type across OEMs. This is thanks to the meticulous historical record and data management of earlier incidents and accidents, which form sufficient research material to work on avoiding or circumventing the problem, in design and engineering adding failsafe measures. For this, modifications and innovative changes are carried out in the designing of aircraft and cabins, and as per regulator guidelines, newer operating laws are applied for operations to remain airworthy.
Designing cabin interiors is pure science and art-infused. Cabin interiors are enhanced for comfort, and importantly must be rendered safe to travel in. Here, there is an ongoing effort to increase the chances of survival in case of an accident or incident during take-off or landing. This is made possible by using aviation complaint materials, the various cabin interior emergency requirements like supplemental passenger oxygen, emergency equipment, seats, flammability, emergency exits, emergency lighting and escape path markings, and various other cabin interior systems.
Therefore, manufacturers, carriers, regulators, and airport operators across the globe, work closely to improve overall safety in airline operations.
Cabin Crew Safety Training & Cabin Safety Management
Escape slides/Chutes
Passenger airplanes are equipped with automatic, self-inflating slides that are made of fire-resistant materials and tested stringently to ensure a 90-second limit of evacuation of passengers in an emergency. Safety regulations require 60 persons to be evacuated per sliding lane per minute. New technologies and research data from past events have gone into developing the most advanced escape slides aiding survivability.
The door slides are mandated to inflate within 10 seconds of deployment, with off-wing slides given a 15-second limit. These are made for all aircraft sizes and can withstand multiple contingencies. Emergency landing on the water during water survival training, which is performed in the pool using actual life jackets and life rafts.”
Cabin crew training and compliance with regulators’ mandates ensure a safe cabin experience and as accident and incident-free as possible. Passenger and crew safety is brought about by proactive safety management, timely hazard identification, risk management, and where survivability in an emergency is the ONLY priority.
Safety training for the crew – in flight is the most important part of keeping the cabin experience safe, and training drills include observing shortcomings and reporting timely to the right authority to recognize cabin safety and design problems and address these promptly for timely rectification.
Some cases of safer air travel and survivability
Most incidents and accidents occur during take-off or landing, and some events as appended herein: on
Increasing survivability: the scope for benefit
While the fatal air accident rate worldwide has fallen significantly, there has not been an equivalent reduction in the fatality rate of onboard crew and passengers.
According to studies, 1500 die each year in air transport accidents. Out of this, some 900 deaths are caused by non-survivable accidents. The other 600 die in technically survivable accidents. Crashworthiness, fire, and evacuation issues are all important. Out of the 600, perhaps 330 deaths occur as a direct result of the impact and 270 because of smoke, toxic fumes, heat, and evacuation challenges.
Public demand for air travel has increased steadily and this has led to airframe manufacturers to design airframes for carriage of 800 or 1000 passengers. Incorporating improvement in the survival rate in designs is a given.
Measures to improve the survival rate
Impact protection – Based on studies and considering various aspects, three impact protection measures are given priority attention: Improvement of seat-floor strength, Three-point safety harness occupant restraint, and Improvement to the strength of overhead stowage.
Fire survivability rating improvements Fitment of an external camera/cockpit monitor, Introduction of smoke hoods in all commercial aircraft, following ergonomic study of stowage and accessibility, Fitment of water mist systems in new types of commercial aircraft; improvements in fireworthiness standards of cabin materials, including toxic emission prevention standards; Enhancement of Fire Services operating close to airports.
Evacuation
Fast and effective evacuation can save many lives in case of a technically survivable aircraft accident. However, several other factors can improve the overall evacuation speed despite unruly passenger behaviour. These are:
- Cabin environment – control of the presence of fire, smoke, and/or toxic fumes in the cabin;
- The configuration of the cabin, the seating configuration near the emergency exits, and ease of opening the exit hatch and the bulkhead aperture;
- The crowd control skills of cabin crew during emergency evacuations; and
- Passengers’ knowledge of safety procedures and their motivation to get acquainted with them.
Fire-protective insulation blankets are designed to resist burn-through from a fuel fire next to the bottom half of the fuselage
The time limit set by the FAA is 90 seconds for evacuation of all passengers from an aircraft. A typical aircraft interior has several built-in features such as escape slides, floor proximity slides that allow rapid emergency handling essential for survivability.
Floor proximity lighting aids airplane evacuation under dark or smoky conditions that pervade an aircraft cabin in the event of a crash. The presence of hot smoke and gases can block out overhead lighting and hence floor lighting shows up emergency path. According to FAA, such a system betters the evacuation rate by twenty percent in some situations.
Safety compliance by Airline Manufacturers /Certification and airworthiness
Product certifications are provided by aviation authorities. Aircraft manufacturers ensure compliance through design and certification of products, maintenance and retrofits, and flight and cabin crew training.
Regardless of whether it is a simple modification, a customized business jet for a VIP, or an airline passenger seating configuration, airworthiness personnel must understand and adhere to the requirements laid down by the regulator. While cabin interior emergency provisions are critical, equally important are environmental, cooling, and ventilation standards and their maintenance, as per FAA’s CFR Part 25 Airworthiness Standards and similar. Continuous audits by regulators are conducted for quality certifications. Any changes proposed to an aircraft cabin interior require continuing compliance with all relevant EASA Part 21 and CS 25 Requirements.
Time management
The cabin crew member must be prepared for passengers boarding and deplaning at multiple stops, while maintaining the requisite levels of meal requirements, and amenities, developing soft skills, and quick thinking under pressure are crucial in emergencies. A ‘mental preparation’ module as part of training. Training in time management ensuring TAT (aircraft turnarounds), the handling of unruly passengers, control and containing suspected infectious diseases on board an aircraft cabin, and the role of simulation devices.
Dealing with difficult passengers
Self–defense, in the handling of unruly passengers, is an important part of cabin safety training. These procedures and techniques are included in airline manuals. Crew awareness to detect the earliest signs of a safety contingency brewing and reporting is part of that drill.
Containing Suspected infectious diseases onboard
Containing possibilities of airborne and infectious disease inside the aircraft cabin is another set of training for flight attendants. Includes recognizing passengers who may be infected or show symptoms before they onboard, or during the flight. SOPs for cabin crew include isolating the infected person, and the use of respirators, masks, or gloves to avoid contamination. Crews are trained to manage basic medical situations with the help of MedAire. Disease prevention and blood-borne pathogen training, food handling safety are critical to training imparted to cabin crew members.
Stowage Latches
Conclusion:
Travellers choose flights based on the quality of the inflight food or the comfort of the seats, inflight entertainment, and more. However, these elements of luxury and comfort are secondary to the safety features of the aircraft. Whether it is a fire detection system, firefighting equipment, or circuit breakers, there are several systems in place to ensure there is no serious fire threat in the cabin/aircraft. Unobtrusive items such as latches and locks ensure that the heavy carts in the galley do not get loose during bad weather and injure people.
Safety will always be the number ONE priority.
Reference Credit:
- Websites of Boeing, Airbus, IATA, ICAO
- mpofcinci.com
- sae.org
- The Points Guy
- Sofema Aviation Services (SAS)
- https://etsc.eu/
- Aviation Business News
