Travel Tips

Travel Tip: The Most Important Safety Rule When A Plane Catches Fire

Locations in this article:  Las Vegas, NV London, England

planeMany of you have already seen it on TV, or on the Internet—the graphic video of the recent fire on board a British Airways 777 in Las Vegas.

The fire broke out in the left engine of the wide-bodied jet as it rolled down the runway toward London.

Luckily, the flight crew reacted quickly to the alarms in the cockpit, aborted the takeoff, and ordered an evacuation.

There were no casualties and only a few injuries.

But this incident is a textbook case—at least for passengers—of what NOT to do during an aircraft emergency.

The video recorded it all: passengers going down slides carrying all their cabin bags, including large Rollaboards.

Never—let me repeat this—never leave a burning aircraft with anything.

You run the risk of blocking exits and aisles, and every second counts.

In the case of the British Airways flight, an evacuation that should have been completed in less than two minutes took close to seven—because of those carry-on bags.

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