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By now, you probably have heard of Emirates Flight 521, which made an emergency landing at Dubai International Airport a few days ago.  It was traveling from Trivandrum International Airport in Thiruvananthapuram, India to Dubai when it appeared to catch on fire as it landed.  Miraculously, all 282 passengers and 18 crew members were able to successfully evacuate the aircraft with no fatalities, though one firefighter did die fighting the fire.

Video from INSIDE the evacuating aircraft

Over on the Points With a Crew Slack channel, user @tomasdev posted a link to this Youtube video, which appears to have been taken by one of the evacuating passengers from flight EK521.

Much of the in-plane chatter is in Arabic, which I do not understand, though you can hear at some point a voice (probably a flight attendant) telling people to “jump – leave your bags”.  The entire video you can see people stopping to open up the overhead bins to take luggage with them.  While I can understand your attachment to “stuff”, especially in a high-stress situation where you might not be thinking clearly, I hope you can understand that this endangers not only you and your family, but EVERYONE ELSE ON THE ENTIRE PLANE!!

Should you take your bags in an emergency?

This is actually something that I’ve wondered about before – whether you should take your bags in case of an aircraft evacuation.  Originally, I was under the impression that taking a small bag at your feet would not be a big dealhotel-day-rooms-luggage-cramped

(SEE ALSO: Sorry, I’m TAKING my bag in an airplane emergency)

But then, in what is sure to be a first in the HISTORY of the Internet, I was convinced to change my mind by the random comments of complete strangers on the Internet

(SEE ALSO: REVISITED: I’m taking my bags in an airplane evacuation)

There are a variety of reasons not to take your bag. Besides slowing things down for every other passenger behind you, there’s the idea that heavy roller-bags are a definite risk to yourself and other passengers as you are evacuating down the inflatable slide.

I should point out, in my defense, that even when I thought I was apt to take my bag, I was just talking about my laptop bag at my feet as I went – I never felt it was right to stop to open up the overhead bins to get your luggage.

I hope that if you’re of the mindset to take your bag in an airplane evacuation that this video changes your mind. Thankfully, it didn’t cost anyone their life in this case, but it very easily could have.


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