According to The Aviation Herald, yesterday's evacuation of a Spirit Airlines plane was triggered by an engine fire. The story has two interesting parts: the actual incident and the video of the evacuation.
Spirit Airlines A320neo in Atlantic City Incident
Spirit Airlines Flight 3044 was operated from Atlantic City (ACY), to Fort Lauderdale (FLL), yesterday evening, October 2, 2021. A nearly two-year-old Airbus A320neo registered under N922NK was the pilot of this flight.
Although the plane was speeding up for takeoff at Atlantic City Airports runway 31, the crew rejected it at 60 knots because of a bird strike with their right engine. The plane was stopped at 1,800 feet from the runway after it rejected a takeoff at a low speed. This incident caused the engine to catch fire. Pilots called fire trucks and within a few minutes, the aircraft was evacuated. The plane was evacuated without any problems.
One passenger, seated behind the right wing, recorded the engine fire. I can see how frightening this must have been for the passengers.
Next, there's the evacuation video
Emergency slides were used to evacuate the plane. This video shows the interior of the cabin, which was about four minutes long.
The crew will announce that they must remain seated. However, passengers don't want to stay seated. They get up and grab their belongings from the overhead bins. However, passengers keep asking to get off the plane and yelling "Cmon, open this door!"
Once the fire has been put out, passengers will be called to evacuate and told to stay away from the right-hand engines. Passengers are repeatedly instructed to abandon all their belongings and simply jump on the slide as they evacuate. It turns out that almost nobody listens and most passengers simply take their bags.
This was fortunately not a more serious situation. However, this evacuation is quite painful to see.
As if they don't know what they are talking about, the first passengers try to tell crew when evacuation should occur.
They then take their bags with them when they are finally allowed to evacuate. One lady even fell to her knees because she tried to take too much.
The crew seems to have done everything possible to ensure that passengers were evacuated safely. They told passengers repeatedly to stay seated (few people heard), and they repeatedly advised passengers to take their carry-ons with them (they didn't listen). So what else could the crew do?
Bottom line
After the engine caught on fire from a bird strike, a Spirit Airlines Airbus A320neo aircraft had to be evacuated from Atlantic City Airport. The aircraft was stopped and emergency services called. The situation was quickly controlled and passengers were evacuated.
It was still frustrating to see how passengers behaved during evacuation. The crew instructions are not followed by passengers, whether it is about remaining seated or leaving behind carry-on luggage. It didn't endanger anyone's life.
