[arunu]

Originally Posted by phamilyman

And nothing is more bizarre than the *obsession* about passports.
.................. If you lose it, or if it's stolen, it's gone. There's no recourse.
........................there’s tremendous uncertainty about existence, and no recourse, yeah, I can see people trying to take their bags if they could.
*fin*

As a person living in the Gulf for 10+ yrs, i complete agree with what you say. Passport is your lifeline and the the most important identity of an expat.

More so for blue-collared workforce. Hence its quite natural for them to cling on to passport because, they know very well that IF THEY SURVIVE and return to Dubai without Passports, their life is going to get further complicated with new passport / new visa / new resident card/ new medical etc etc. Indian Embassy may help in obtaining a new pp but convincing the employer to re-process your residency status is a very big challenge.

Many of the countries do not treat their blue-collared work force well and hence its a natural tendency.

Westerners mocking Asians may not have gone through such experiences and more over, these westerners are treated well THAN their Asian counterparts.

Its a good idea as somebody said to keep your PP and IDs on yourself all the time rather in hand-baggage.

GOD's grace that all the pax and crew are safe. Our prayers to the brave fire-fighter who lost his life in saving 300 odd lives.

[drmohitg]

I am more interested in the person making the video. Its sad to see people criticizing the passengers trying to grab their luggage and not say a word to the moron who was filming this all.

The second thing is it is heart wrenching to read about the passport and stuff. But Indians in general also have got no sense of respecting the rules and other people's right to existence. If even a single person died there because of the time wasted by people in grabbing their passports then who gets the blame? Rules are rules. You knew them before going to the Gulf. Hiding behind such excuses of poverty and exploitation there is still no excuse for a human losing his or her life because you were trying to take your passport during emergency evacuation.

[Thad E Ginathom]

Originally Posted by arunu

Westerners mocking Asians may not have gone through such experiences and more over, these westerners are treated well THAN their Asian counterparts.

As a sample "Westerner" living in a "foreign" country (Bottom line fact is that I am a foreigner living in India) I fully understand the need of people not to leave without their passports. I'm still thankful that, during the Chennai flood, my passport was out for renewal, so my papers were separate and untouched. My wife was not so lucky.

Even as a hobby sailor of long ago, reading everything I could about boats and the sea, I remember the advice to ensure, that, in the unlikely event of having to abandon ship, you have wallet, cash, passport, in a waterproof packet, otherwise, assuming survival, you are just a penniless, unidentifiable person, washing up on a strange shore. Applies to commercial ships as well as yachts. Or planes.

When flying, my papers will usually be in the case in the overhead locker. In future, I will revise this, and keep them with me.

[Rahul Bhalgat]

NDTV has accessed the EVENT SUMMARY of the accident, filed by the pilots. In a nutshell:

• The aircraft could not touch down in the intended zone because of the float created by an updraft, during the landing flare. With the length of the runway running out, the pilots decided to abort the landing and go around.
• Initially, the go around appeared to be going properly but soon the airspeed dropped rapidly because of wind shear.
• Pilots' action of retracting the landing gear added to the drag.
• Till the engines could develop full thrust (which takes 6 to 10 seconds), the aircraft stalled and hit the ground on it's belly.

http://www.ndtv.com/world-news/exclu...anding-1443021

[TKMCE]

It is sad to see some people in this forum defending the actions of pasengers delaying evacuation by trying to collect their hand baggage saying your documents are critical for an expatriate.

Is any document more important than a human life ? These selfish people nearly undid the great work done by the cabin crew in getting everyone out safely.

One possible way out (And this is not my idea - it has been suggested in many discussion forums) is that cabin baggage compartments should be auto lockable centrally and should be opened only after the aircraft has come to a safe halt. After all people have had to travel without hand baggage on flights departing from Jammu and Kashmir airports because of strictly enforced security regulations. It is time we learn from this Emirates accident and proactively put measures in place to curb the hand baggage mania .


And this is not the first time that incidents of people evacuating with hand baggage has been reported. Following is an extract of an "incident report" taken from the DGCA website which deals with a Jet Airways aircraft having an emergency evacuation after a "reported" fire ( fortunately there was no fire in the end) when the aircraft was taxiing before take off in August 2010 at Mumbai.

http://www.dgca.nic.in/accident/repo...ent/VT-JGM.pdf

Extract from Page 31 of above report.

Some of the passengers had fallen one over the other who exited through the right over-wing exits. Some of the passengers were jumping as well sliding out during the evacuation with their shoes and luggage.

A more recent incident again involving a flight from India. This time an Indigo flight at Kathmandu in March 2014.
http://www.dgca.nic.in/accident/repo...ent/VT-IEU.pdf

Extract from Page 27 of the report.

It was observed from the videos released after the incident that the passengers had evacuated from the right side where the fire had occurred and also were seen evacuating on escape slides with the cabin luggage’s

It is time we learn from these past incidents and accidents including the Emirates accident and enforce regulations before precious lives are lost due to some people's outright stupidiity .

[pgupta]

No document is precious than anybody's life. Important documents can be kept secure in person if it is that important than in case of a evacuation call you would not like to leave without it, even if that means putting yourself and others life at risk. Be it passport or any other document, it can always be kept in person in shirt pocket etc. it's absolutely horrible seeing people waste time in a situation like this. May be they underestimated the seriousness of the situation.

[arunu]

Originally Posted by TKMCE

It is sad to see some people in this forum defending the actions of pasengers delaying evacuation by trying to collect their hand baggage saying your documents are critical for an expatriate.

.....................lost due to some people's outright stupidiity .

IF you are referring to my post, then you misunderstood it. I am noway supporting the behavior of passengers. All I am saying is this is the basic human psychology of survival. If you read carefully what I had written, there is a section which says "IF THEY SURVIVE and GOBACK". This is of critical importance. I have seen the actual hardships people go through when they don't have their documents with them and hence I had related to their basic human psychology and human nature. Infact, I am a part of a group where we try to help such stranded people here in Oman and try to support their travel/medical etc and hence my observations.

Someone even raised a question as to why to go to a country if life is so difficult and hard!!! Simple thought process, make some money even if you endure hardships for the sake of better life back home. Try and be on the right side of the law always and you are away from trouble.

Originally Posted by pgupta

No document is precious than anybody's life. Important documents can be kept secure in person if it is that important than in case of a evacuation call you would not like to leave without it, even if that means putting yourself and others life at risk. Be it passport or any other document, it can always be kept in person in shirt pocket etc. it's absolutely horrible seeing people waste time in a situation like this. May be they underestimated the seriousness of the situation.

Yes, and as rightly pointed in earlier posts, its a good idea to have your important IDs/PPs on yourself instead of the cabin baggage.