Emergency Exits

[dbaker]

I always locate the two nearest to me. Even on aircraft that I frequently commute in, I quickly confirm where I think they are before every takeoff.

The key to surviving disaster is completely the ability to quickly exit. You can't contribute much to surviving the crash, but you can prepare to abandon ship.

Keep in mind that the nearest exit may be behind you!

[BovineOne]

In the event of an emergency, lighted indicators along the floor will guide you to the nearest exit.

[phule]

Originally Posted by BovineOne

In the event of an emergency, lighted indicators along the floor will guide you to the nearest exit.

Given there's a floor left...

How often, during a serious crash, do these things actually work? What's the redundancy?

[dbaker]

The floor of the main cabin is pretty far off the ground when it comes to impact. If the floor is gone, you probably wouldn't need to go out the exit doors anyway since there would be other ways, if you survived.

I think that the lights would be most useful in a situation where there's so much fire and smoke that it's hard to otherwise see where the exits are.

[tycoonjack]

It seems to me that the lights are just a "feel good" thing for the passengers. In an actual emergency, I don’t think that most people would look to the lights to get out, and if there is heavy smoke in the cabin, most of the people aren’t going to be able to focus on little lights on the cabin floor.

[daa]

in heavy smoke you would be crawling along the floor....

[tycoonjack]

Yeah I know that’s how it's supposed to work, but I don't know how many panicked passengers would actually do that.

[dbaker]

With enough smoke, I suspect that all that you could see would be the lights along the aisles.

[Decibel]

Originally Posted by dbaker

The floor of the main cabin is pretty far off the ground when it comes to impact. If the floor is gone, you probably wouldn't need to go out the exit doors anyway since there would be other ways, if you survived.

I think that the lights would be most useful in a situation where there's so much fire and smoke that it's hard to otherwise see where the exits are.

Yeah, but a good question is: where's the power supply for those pretty lights? I'd guess there'd be a really good chance of those things not working in anything more than a minor incident.

[JW]

Yeah, but a good question is: where's the power supply for those pretty lights? I'd guess there'd be a really good chance of those things not working in anything more than a minor incident.

There are multiple requirements for emergency lighting systems, including escape path lighting.

Typically each "zone" of escape path lighting on an aircraft with have a power feed at each end for redundancy.

-jw