Before every flight, flight attendants provide careful safety instructions about what to do if the unthinkable happens. Passengers in a commercial airplane landing in Miami recently were glad they listened closely to those instructions before take off.
130 passengers and 10 crew members were on a flight from Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic to Miami when, upon landing, the landing gear collapsed, causing the plane to skid and catch fire, reports CNN.
One passenger who was on the plane with his wife and four-month-old daughter said, “it was scary, but actually the protocol worked. Everybody got out.” He said that everything was okay on the flight, until the landing. The National Transportation Safety Board said there were several people injured. Airport spokesman Greg Chin told CNN three people were taken to a hospital with minor injuries. They were treated and released, according to Jackson Health System.
“Having the gear collapse on landing is incredibly unusual, if not unprecedented,” said Aviation Analyst John Nance.
The airplane belongs to the Dominican Republic-based airline Red Air. It was a McDonnell Douglas MD-82. The airplane was almost 32 years old, according to Planespotters.net and It had been in service with American Airlines Group at one time, reports Bloomberg. “At RED Air we express our absolute solidarity with the passengers and crew of the aircraft,” the company said in the statement.
Of course, someone on the plane caught the evacuation on video:
Many people tweeted their displeasure at a person who would grab his luggage before evacuating an airplane on fire. Here is what just one person said: “Emergency evacuation Rule No 1: no one should carry any baggage. Leave everything behind. They didn’t follow that. Every second counts, you may get someone behind you engulfed in flames because of your silly personal items[.]”
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It is a miracle that everyone survived and there were only minor injuries. That a passenger would be so self-absorbed as to grab his bags and video the evacuation is maddening. What would you have done if you had also been a passenger trying to evacuate that plane?
