Sunday June 2 night’s accident involving Cebu Pacific flight 5J-971 raises important questions about the obligations of a carrier—a flag carrier, at that—to its passengers and the general public AFTER an airplane accident.
The airplane’s crew waited 15 minutes after the accident before commencing emergency evacuation, Andrews said, citing passenger statements. “From reports of the passengers on board, it took [the crew] several minutes and they never declared an emergency evacuation,” he said. But “actual SOP (standard operating procedure) dictates after an emergency such as this accident, automatically, you have to evacuate the aircraft. Cabin attendants are trained to evacuate the aircraft within three minutes. First evacuation started, I believe, 15 minutes after the aircraft came to a complete stop.”
Other passengers, who must have conveyed the information to the president of Ateneo de Davao University, thought the crew waited almost twice as long before commencing emergency evacuation. |
