Emergency landing question

[Rustyt1953]

For you aviation folks. I watched a program about the Reeve Aleutian Lockheed L-188 Electra that made a miraculous landing at Anchorage Int. in 1983.

On approach, the flight attendants told the passengers to remove their shoes (which I had heard of before) but also to put their jewelry into an air sick bag.

I honestly had never heard of this before. I can't find much on-line and rather than speculate, I thought I would ask "why they would do this"?

Forgive my cluelessness. I am just curious.

 

[Jessie]

The shoes were probably to prevent damage to an escape slide, which are inflated.
The jewelry was probably for similar reasons.
I don't know if that particular aircraft had an escape slide but, if not, removing your shoes would make it easier to walk on the wings if you had to escape that way and jewelry just happens to hang up on and in things.

 

[THE PILGRIM]

Out West here, it's damn near impossible to git the Buckeroos to remove their spurs.

 

[Rustyt1953]

I can understand the shoe/slide thing. I just don't get why watches, rings and necklaces were removed.

I may be wrong, but I don't think the Electra (1957-1961) had a slide. I did not know, until now, that the Electra morphed into the P3 Orion.

Every day, something new.

 

[Jessie]

If your jewelry got hung up on something it could either hurt you or slow/stop the escape for others, plus a lot of jewelry is sharp or actually has pins, etc.
It may not have left the factory with a slide, but might have been added later, as it was with other aircraft.

 

[PPS1980]

I can understand the shoe/slide thing. I just don't get why watches, rings and necklaces were removed.

I may be wrong, but I don't think the Electra (1957-1961) had a slide. I did not know, until now, that the Electra morphed into the P3 Orion.

Every day, something new.

The Electras were in service long after '61. As such, if they were in service in a US flagged carrier they had slides because the doorway is more than 6 feet above the ground. The first aircraft evacuation slide was developed and produced by Air Cruisers, founded by James F. Boyle, inventor of the World War II life vest, the "Mae West". The patent for the inflatable escape chute assembly was submitted by Boyle in 1954 and the designs was patented in 1956 under patent number 2,765,131.

 

[Rustyt1953]

The Electras were in service long after '61.

I get that as the incident occurred in '83. Just curious as to the bling.

 

[JayCeeNC]

I've done identification work on plane crashes with multiple deaths.
Often jewelry, especially personalized rings, was the only way we could identify the charred corpses.
Not sure why it would be prudent to remove it.

 

[PPS1980]

I get that as the incident occurred in '83. Just curious as to the bling.

Lockheed is currently redoing the wings on older P-3 Orions to extend their service life even farther. They are essentially giving them new wings, and this on an aircraft designed in the 1950s.

 

[olcop]

Emergency landing

I can understand the shoe/slide thing. I just don't get why watches, rings and necklaces were removed.

I may be wrong, but I don't think the Electra (1957-1961) had a slide. I did not know, until now, that the Electra morphed into the P3 Orion.

Every day, something new.

That's it's latest iteration--the originals were P-2's----it also had an Airborne Early Warning version .
olcop

 

[Tradewind36]

Removing shoes and jewelry isn't being taught in flight attendant training currently, at least at the last 2 majors I worked at before retiring 5 years ago. As mentioned above it was probably to prevent damage to the slide.

 

[steveno]

there was a rule we had that you didn't wear rings and watches when working on airplanes and I would imagine that is true about getting off an airplane as well in an emergency. when I got to Germany we had our flightline orientation and one of the slides that was shown was that of a finger with a wedding ring. a guy was working on an engine and instead getting down from an engine stand and moving it closer he decided to just reach a little further. he lost his balance and fell down onto the cement but the finger was still up on the engine cowling with a bunch of tendons and ligaments as well. rings and watches will catch on things when you least expect it.

 

[THE PILGRIM]

It certainly sounds like a hairy situation.
But the Captain who later Gonged by Ron Reagan got it down without loss of life.
And the Lockheed L-188 was repaired and returned to flying.
It's most certainly a safety issue, both in ensuring the safety of passengers and the evacuation slide.
Even if the L-188 didn't have one when originally built, the requirement may have come along later and it's not that a big of deal to add one.
So if the Hostess said they had one, they most likely did.

Reeve Aleutian Airways Flight 8 - Wikipedia

 

[Rustyt1953]

A side note. The control cables were pinched due to the damage done to the cabin floor. After hours of trying to force the yokes, the pilots succeeded in wearing channels in the metal to free the cables enough to regain control.

Throttles stuck wide open, no brakes, absolutely an amazing landing.

 

[mojave30cal]

Always remember...a landing is a controlled crash, and any
landing you can walk away from is a good one.

 

[Tom S.]

Always remember...a landing is a controlled crash, and any
landing you can walk away from is a good one.

Or in the immortal words of one little old lady as she passed by the captain getting off a plane: "Did we land or were we shot down?".

 

[Big Cholla]

I flew as a passenger on that very aircraft in Jan., 1968 from Anchorage to Amchitka Island, AK with a stop on Adak overnight because of weather. Later that year I flew back to Anchorage on the same A/C when the usual Alaska Airlines Boeing 727 had a hole punched in its side by one of our forklift drivers... :-( That was one angry Captain because he then had to fly back to Anchorage at an altitude under 12,000 ft. Reeve Aleutian stepped up and did the flying to and from Amchitka until Alaska got their bird fixed. ...

 

[vigil617]

Maybe the flight attendants were just giving the poor passengers something to keep themselves busy with before, you know, probably dying in a plane crash....

 

[Mainsail]

I have over 5600 hours in C-141s, I would never take my shoes off even if the pilot said so.

There was an accident in the Caribbean where one plane took off and hit a plane that was still on the runway. One of the stewardesses had her high heels shoes blown off her feet- she had to jump out of the wreckage onto jagged metal below. I have always worn substantial shoes whenever I fly.

 

[mojave30cal]

Whenever I fly as a passenger on a commercial plane, I never
wear shorts. I always wear cotton pants (jeans) and cotton
shirt. If there is a crash and a cabin fire, clothing made of
synthetic material will melt to your skin, and will be very pain-
ful to remove during burn treatment. Just say'n.