JetBlue blows an engine...PAX all think they're gonna die

[cdnpilot77]

Peoples NEED for drama in their lives never ceases to amaze me. A tense few minutes no doubt but "Rathbone and his family went home to celebrate their living through Thursday's scare with a wine and champagne tasting, he said on whosay -- they opened half a dozen bottles."....really?

(CNN) -- Many wept. Some prayed. But after their smoke-filled plane rattled to an emergency landing, passengers had a new lease on life, as they exited a JetBlue flight Thursday via inflatable chutes.
"I'm just happy to be alive," said passenger Jarrod West, who slid down holding his black Chihuahua. "I don't think I'll be mean to anybody ever again."
Four people were injured in the incident; one was taken to hospital, CNN affiliate KCAL reported.
Passenger: I thought I was going to die
A loud pop initiated the brush with disaster, said West and other passengers who spoke with KCAL from the airport at Long Beach, California.
Flight 1416 had left Long Beach Airport about 15 minutes before and was over the ocean, carrying 147 passengers and crew headed for Austin, Texas.
"The flight attendants were yelling 'brace, brace' and they kept repeating it and repeating it on the top of their lungs."
passenger Jarrod West
Then the right engine "blew," JetBlue told KCAL.
A signal alerted pilots that an engine was overheating, fire department spokesman Jake Heflin told KCAL. The pilots deployed extinguishers.
Thick smoke filled cabin
Actor Jackson Rathbone was on the flight with his wife and child. "Our right engine exploded and our cabin filled with smoke," he posted to Twitter.
It grew so thick that passengers could no longer see the people seated next to them, said passenger Jonathon Hubbard.
West realized he would have a hard time breathing soon, but oxygen masks did not drop down, he said.
So flight attendants went around deploying them by hand.
Fortunately not far from its departure airport, the plane careened into a sharp curve back toward it, Rathbone said. The actor is known for his role in the TV series "Aim High."
Tears as plane rattles
As it cruised back over land, the plane began to quake, and passengers broke into tears, afraid for their lives.
"Everyone was crying," passenger Dean Delbaugh said. "I thought this was it." His wife, seated next to him, clung to him.
Rathbone was also flying with his family.
"I recited the Lord's Prayer as I held my son and my wife in my arms," he posted to social media site whosay.

Then flight attendants prepared the passengers in the event of a hard landing.
"The flight attendants were yelling 'brace, brace' and they kept repeating it and repeating it on the top of their lungs," West said.
Happy to be alive
But the pilot brought the scare to an end by setting the plane gently onto the runway.
"He put it on the numbers. He did good," West said. "He came by afterwards and said 'hello' to everybody. All of us were hugging him and saying 'thank you.'"
Passenger Jonathan Hubbard was sitting in the exit row and wasted no time.
"I took the exit door and just threw it out the plane and just jumped out," he told KCAL. An inflatable chute was waiting to catch him.
JetBlue spokeswoman Jessica Felipe said everyone evacuated the planes by using emergency slides.
"I grabbed my son and jumped down the inflated ramp, my wife following," Rathbone tweeted. "We left all our personal effects onboard. Who cares. We were alive."
Passengers were led to a room, where they were debriefed, Rathbone said. KCAL reported that those wishing to continue to Austin were put onto a later flight.
There was no statement on the Flight 1416 incident on JetBlue's website. But on the day of the incident, the airline announced CEO Dave Barger would step down, effective in February. The statement did not connect the decision with the calamity.
In Augusts a jetBlue engine caught fire in San Juan, Puerto Rico, sending passengers and crew down the emergency slides.
Rathbone and his family went home to celebrate their living through Thursday's scare with a wine and champagne tasting, he said on whosay -- they opened half a dozen bottles.

[GRK]

So now we have JB passengers opening emergency exits on their own and evacuating without any command? I wonder if the engine was still running? My good friend who works for JB said that the Cabin Crew feel they are in command of the passenger cabin and have blown slides after a return for a problem without finding out if it's OK. In other words the jet is still on it's wheels, and there are two live pilots in the flight deck… who were pretty surprised that the evac command came from the back...pretty serious sh*t if you ask me...

[flyinthebug]

If there was smoke as thick as they describe in the cabin, id be a bit shaken too!

Then add on the FAs screaming at you to brace and you have a scary situation for anyone.

To those of us that "know" it was barely an event, but to the uneducated travelling public, it likely was a terrifying event.

Glad this one had a happy ending.

Fly safe all.

[photofly]

Historically many passengers have died strapped into their seats waiting for instructions, as fire took hold around them following a survivable landing. Sometimes waiting for someone else to tell you what to do is not appropriate.

[cdnpilot77]

If there was smoke as thick as they describe in the cabin, id be a bit shaken too!

Pretty sure that was sensationalized because people have that inherent desire to exaggerate their misfortunes. If you look at the video or even the screen shot of the video "can't see the person next to you" is pretty far fetched.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/09/18/us/jetblu ... ?hpt=hp_t2

[timel]

In other words the jet is still on it's wheels, and there are two live pilots in the flight deck… who were pretty surprised that the evac command came from the back...pretty serious sh*t if you ask me...

Remember that when Asiana crashed, pilots asked FAs to keep everyone inside, they decided to exit anyway after seeing some obvious threatening danger. I think it is difficult to judge both sides, pilots might not be aware of smoke in the cabin, and FAs feel they have to act.

It goes back to training...

[Illya Kuryakin]

Cabin crew screaming BRACE? After an engine failure? Popping chutes with no direction from the cockpit? Can you say, more training is needed here. Knew ha could.
Illya

[GRK]

You beat me to it…seems that there might not be much communication between the two parties. I wonder If JB has any sort of a decision making model they use in situations like this? FORDEC or NITES and the like. To shout brace in this kind of situation is a little overboard. Maybe the JB cabin crew don't trust the Flight Deck? It will be a training issue for sure. I'd be a very careful Captain at a place like that, my name would be in the logbook and if somebody got hurt in an evac I didn't call, then my name would be on top of the lawsuit before I could clean my shorts!

[North Shore]

Read the story, didn't watch the vid....people are so conditioned by Hollywood to think that any plane abnormality is going to lead to a smoking hole in the ground, that expecting them to keep their cool and listen for the evacuate command that they learned about in a 1 minute speech from the f/a 2 hours ago before takeoff is a little far-fetched. Plane came to a halt, smoke in the cabin, and buddy in 12A yanked the handle and was out the exit before pilots or f/as had a chance to even think about saying no..

[bobcaygeon]

Same thing happened in YOW with Jazz. Passengers evacuated on the taxiway after landing even though FA told them not to. Front end had no idea initially because the FA was dealing with the pax. . I believe ATC advised the front end their pax were departing the aircraft.
The "issue" was "smoke" from the O2 generators.

Seen the same thing in a Metro with the engines running. Passengers evacuated out the front door after cabin filled with smoke from oil in the bleed system. They were holding short of the runway waiting for takeoff. Crew was dealing with the smoke when the door light came on and their half dozen pax vacated. Captain shutdown the engine but all the passenger were long gone before the prop stop turning.


Sheep are sheep

[pdw]

The cabin crew acted correctly. Bang ... brace ... smoke ... thick ... masks ... land ... chutes ... fresh air ..

By the time the pilots get back there I'm sure the atmosphere was great ... with every opening letting in the fresh air.

Last month a computor glitch forced our plane back in after pushback ... on a flight to YYC. Cabin power was shut off for 5 min for the re-boot but got awful in there very fast. In this case the cabin crew were up front by the open door chatting with the pilots and the mechs while filling out paperwork, occasionally turning to us and apologizing for the inconvenience. But the venting was still very weak when it slowly came back on (seemed like no APU / just batter power)... so for the next 15-20 it remained putrid hot stale air and coughing pax. Germs anyone ? Cough, cold , flu .... ebola ... tB ?

I'm afraid on this one the airline / management may well be in need some re-learning too; that is, if they got any problem understanding the 'no brainer' being described in the previous posts, ... the quick-thinking evac of the JB.

[I_Heart_Seaplanes]

I don't know where everyone is getting the info that the FAs were not told to evacuate or evacuated without instructions. In the video, one of the pilots tells tower that they are "on the ground and going to evacuate". For all we know, the FAs knew that as well. If that is the case, its also likely that the FAs told the passengers they would be evacuating. If I am sitting at an exit, and have been told we are evacuating, I'd pop the door as well.

[Heliian]

The videos clearly show a smoked up cabin. I'd be heading out the nearest exit too. Remember it's rarely the fire that kills you.

[timel]

Video here:
http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/09/19 ... ng-flight/

As the plane landed, the pilot told passengers to brace themselves, Delbaugh said.

[RatherBeFlying]

Better a premature evacuation with likely minor injuries than a delayed one with pax lost.

Any fireman will tell you how quickly a little fire can become a big one in a flash.

[digits_]

*if* the info from the CNN movie is correct:

1) There is smoke in the cabin and the cause is uknown (tower says it is not from the engine)
2) Engine failure
3) The FA were yelling brace brace brace
4) The captain informs ATC they are evacuating

Seems logical you would deploy the emergency exits then ?

[PositiveRate27]

This thread is hilarious

Avcanada arm chair piloting at its finest!

[pdw]

Is there no shut off to bleed air, or whatever way all that smoke could get inside a fuselage, all the way over from a blown right wing engine?

[justwork]

Is there no shut off to bleed air, or whatever way all that smoke could get inside a fuselage, all the way over from a blown right wing engine?

Jet blue has the "full of smoke" mod. It diverts all smoke into the fuselage, rendering all of the passengers "full of smoke" when they tweet or participate in any form of social media...

[pdw]

Is there no shut off to bleed air, or whatever way all that smoke could get inside a fuselage, all the way over from a blown right wing engine?

It diverts all smoke into the fuselage, ...

The fuselage exit-vents must exhale a lot of bad air, ...so its likely just going with the normal fast flow-through anyway.