Tuesday, September 06, 2011

RwandAir Flight Crew Completes Partial Emergency Evacuation Certification

4 September 2011

The national carrier's flight crew successfully carried a mini-evacuation exercise under the close scrutiny of Rwanda Civil Aviation Authority (RCAA).

The exercise, which is mandatory before the certification of an aircraft by the civil aviation authorities, involves the simulation of an emergency evacuation scenario and its success is pegged on flight crew response time from the time a mid air emergency is declared up to landing.

RCAA rated the exercise a complete success as the cabin crew managed to deploy two slide chutes within nine seconds of the evacuation call from the captain.

This call would under an emergency situation be made by the captain in command of a flight right after making an emergency landing and turning off the aircraft engines. Safety regulations require that a mini evacuation be completed within 15 seconds so as to be deemed successful.

Other than measuring the time taken to evaluate the passengers in case of an emergency, this drill also gauges effectiveness of training undertaken by cabin crew to execute emergency procedures while also measuring the reliability of emergency equipment on board and their timely activation in such situations.

The completion of the test comes hardly a week after the national carrier took delivery of its first ultra-modern Boeing 737-800NG aircraft, which puts RwandAir as the first airline in Africa to own and operate the Boeing Sky Interior. The second such plane is expected in October.

http://allafrica.com

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