How To Stay Safe During An Emergency Landing

Whether you travel for business or leisure, you’ve inevitably seen and heard the safety announcements ahead of departure. The information typically highlights what to do in the event of rough air, a change in cabin pressure or an emergency landing. While most people don’t like to think about the possibility of emergency landings, it’s important to know how to deal with one should it happen to you.

Last week, a video showed passengers on an American Airlines flight evacuating during an emergency landing in Denver after a problem occurred with a wheel. The video shows people going down the inflatable slide and quickly rushing off the aircraft, many of them holding their carry-on luggage. So that got us wondering one very important question — shouldn’t you leave all that behind?

Ahead, we spoke with flight attendants about emergency landings, and they highlighted one potentially deadly mistake that often happens that could cost you or other passengers their lives.

As seen in last week’s viral video, a majority of the passengers who evacuated took some of their belongings with them, whether it was carry-on luggage or a backpack. Although you might think grabbing those items is a good idea, in the grand scheme of things, it could actually cost you or someone their life during an emergency landing.

″Every second counts during an evacuation, especially when it’s a critical event like smoke in the cabin,” said Valerie Fraser, an inflight crew member for JetBlue. “Even if it takes what feels like to you 5 seconds to grab a bag, that could be 5 seconds needed to save a life behind you.”

In fact, there have actually been instances in the past where customers on board actually died because the evacuation wasn’t done quickly enough, according to Fraser. “There’s a reason why we make announcements during the safety demo to leave everything behind in the event of an emergency,” she said.

Aside from delaying the evacuation time, grabbing items from a plane before going off can also pose other hazards on board and to the safety equipment, including the inflatable slides.

“Bags can block the aisles, damage the slides or even trip someone,” said Andy L., a flight attendant who has been working domestic flights for one year (he asked to change his name for privacy reasons related to his…