In an evacuation, there’s one rule every passenger must obey: leave your bags behind. Yet time and again, we’ve seen people drag rolling suitcases and backpacks off planes in emergencies, creating dangerous bottlenecks and slowing the escape of everyone onboard. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has issued a new Safety Alert for Operators reminding airlines to reinforce this critical message with both crew and passengers.
FAA Warns Passengers: Don’t Grab Bags During Aircraft Evacuations
The FAA’s latest alert, SAFO 25003, calls on airlines to emphasize procedures that discourage passengers from retrieving carry-on baggage during evacuations. The agency notes that grabbing bags has been repeatedly observed in real-world evacuations and poses a serious risk to the safety of passengers and crew.
Flight attendants already instruct passengers to leave belongings behind in an emergency, but the FAA wants operators to go further by reinforcing the message in safety demonstrations, briefings, and training. Even a handful of people stopping to pull a roller bag from an overhead bin can puncture slides, block narrow aisles, and turn a 90-second evacuation into a dangerous delay.
A Good Reminder, But Punishment + Enforcement Needed
Recent incidents in the U.S. and abroad, show that many passengers still ignore or misunderstand evacuation instructions when adrenaline spikes. The FAA urges airlines to review and sharpen their scripts, rehearse more realistic drills, and make it unmistakably clear that personal items stay on the aircraft in an emergency.
But I think most passengers already know they should leave items behind…and yet grab them anyway because they face no consequences for doing so other than perhaps ridicule online if the evacuation is captured on video. It seems to me that the only way we can get people to take this reasonable rule seriously is to harshly punish violators.
Reckless endangerment is a criminal offense involving conduct that creates a substantial risk of serious physical injury or death to another person, even without intent to cause harm. Those who take take thier bag(s) during an evacuation should be charged with reckless endangerment even if no one is hurt.
Involuntary manslaughter is the unintentional killing of a person, caused by the defendant’s criminal negligence or recklessness. Those who take take thier bag(s) during an evacuation should be charged with involuntary manslaughter if someone dies because they slowed down the evacuation.
CONCLUSION
Common sense, but worth repeating: if you ever face an evacuation, listen to the crew, move quickly, and leave everything behind. You can replace a bag. You cannot replace a life. I like that the FAA is asking airlines to make this clearer, but we need to go a step further. Violators should face extreme punishment, up to and including reckless endangerment if no one is hurt and involuntary manslaughter if someone dies on account of slowing down the evacuation.
Cue the people who will inevitably come here to rationalize “it takes me three seconds to grab my laptop and I spent the entire flight working on a catheter equipment cleaning procedures PowerPoint presentation”. Nobody cares. We need fines and mandatory airline bans as a bare minimum for this type of behavior.
Should we fine and ban old people, fat people, and disabled people too? They really slow things down …
@Ryan … I happen to be disabled , and my bag is checked . As I will be in front , hopefully I will not be impeded , and I can find my way . But I am on my own , and I know it .
The morons are those with heavy carry-on bags , who ask for help to put them overhead , and will hinder their fellow travelers .
@Ryan, you really can’t see the difference between the two?
@Michael … +1 .
We need fines and airline bans for people who don’t check their heavy bags or who bring dogs , and for airlines who ordered the luggage bins in their aircraft .
The airlines themselves are at fault , for ordering the luggage bins on their aircraft . They caused this entire problem.
I don’t know what heavy bags have to do with anything and why the airlines are at fault. A normal boarding process isn’t an emergency, and there is plenty of time for people to load up their bags, especially if they are doing it on their own and the bag meets airline size and weight compliance. As long as that person isn’t retrieving the bag during an evacuation I don’t have a problem with how heavy the bag is during normal flight operations.
Exactly. Even if the prosecutors aren’t willing to act, the airlines can and should impose lifetime bans on passengers who endanger others’ lives.
Most, if not all, airline terms/conditions include provisions allowing bans to be imposed for unsafe behavior.
@DamusAran … Yes , But the airlines themselves allow the heavy carry-on bags onto the aircraft , and install the bins in the first place . I say the FAA ought to fine the airlines themselves for being so dumb to begin with .
I’m fairly young and fit. I can get off a plane with my carry-on much more quickly than a morbidly obese, old, or disabled person. Why not crack down on that too?
You are. That will change in 30 years and people will still help you evacuate when you do need help. In the meantime let’s try to be compassionate and help those who do need help during an evacuation. I have faith that you would do the same if you found an old person or a kid who needed the help.
Human life is intrinsically valuable…your bag is not.
Ryan, are you fairly retarded too?
Stupid is as stupid does. That the FAA and airlines have to tell people to leave bags behind, and that we elected a nasty lying moron to be president TWICE, is further evidence that (unfortunately) we’ve become a nation of idiots. This recent Reddit video from Dutch TV is more evidence of that and also proof that the entire world is now laughing AT us and not with us. (Dutch comedian satirical television parody Disney video)
Nor twice, 3 times
Hahahahaha
Airlines should firmly state that left baggage will receive generous compensation
Yep , but view the competition : Hilarious , Brandon , and Camel-a . Notice a downward IQ trend ? Maybe their next nominee will be the bottom of the barrel : Jimmy ( crybaby ) Kimmel ?
Kimmel takes the prize for the bottom of the barrel ? He doesn’t even know he is being dunked into the barrel .
You really need new material.
As someone whose no longer a teenager, I don’t fret about whose laughing at or with me. I have responsibilities. That said, I didn’t vote for the current president due to my disagreement with him on some issues, but I can empathize with those that did. If the left didn’t scapegoat whites and men (and gaslight us about it) or corporations weren’t selling us out, someone like Trump couldn’t have gotten elected.
When you aren’t reasonable with people, people become unreasonable.
That said, let’s discuss the topic at hand: Unlike some people (hello Matt!) who put their passport in seat pockets, I personally have chest wallet to carry our passports so they’re on one of us at all times. I go to the lav wearing it. There’s a good argument for NOT packing your jacket in the overhead bin so you’ll have lots of pockets for such evacuations.
Someone came up with a good idea: notify the passengers they’ll be compensated for any equipment lost. I could use a new laptop anyway. And YES, BACKUP YOUR DATA!!!
Wow! This must be the first positive policy from the current administration. Congratulations for thinking about the citizens! /golf clap
Legal consequences should be the answer for those that only care about themselves. Proper footwear also needs to be addressed. You cannot safely navigate a debris field quickly with open toe shoes and sandals. Heels could damage the slide.
For a member of my family with a progressive disability, we, with great sadness, have had the conversation about future air travel is no longer being safe.
No matter how much you encourage it or mention it… you can’t stop indecent people from still doing it.
For me, every takeoff I do, I always put my wallet in my pocket, since it holds my passport and US visa, so it’s a quick up n out just in case. Anything else I could care less about (well as in if I had to choose between that or my life).
Your premise is valid and is a step in the right direction, if just a drop in the bucket.
Let’s be honest here and accept that airplane exit times are simply a polite fiction. There’s just no way that a plane with smoke billowing from an engine at night with elderly, infirm people, small children, people who need wheelchairs, and a standard cross section of standard American passengers will exit in 90 seconds.
Changing the law to prevent the idiocy that currently occurs is unlikely to suddenly turn selfish nut cases into decent humans. What we need is a plan to keep people from being selfish
If overhead bins were unable to be opened without pilot approval then a lot of this would be moot.
Christian, I believe they don’t lock the bins because the same selfish horrible people would try to open them causing additional delay.
Maryland, you may be right. Same reason why ash receptacles are still installed in the lavatories even though smoking on aircraft was outlawed years ago.
Once people know for sure that they simply cannot get into the locked overhead bin then they will stop trying. Do you keep trying a locked door you can’t get past if there’s an alternative? I expect not.
“ If overhead bins were unable to be opened without pilot approval then a lot of this would be moot.”
Great idea and simple!
Agree with Matthew punish violators. I have often wondered when you heard airline stewards and stewardess’ if airline passengers in a real event did actually obey and leave their bags. It is what I suspected, a few do not.
Without enforcement and punishment these rules are but toothless tigers.