If an airplane has to be evacuated, the Federal Aviation Administration says all passengers must be capable of getting outwithin 90 seconds.
But critics say the agency’s testing standards have not kept pace with the shrinking size of airplane seats — which means more people jammed into the cabin — or the changing composition of the flying public.
“This is ridiculous. This is not how we travel today,” said U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) in an interview.
Duckworth argues the FAA’s current tests fail to take real world conditions into consideration.
“They did not mimic the seat density of a modern aircraft. They had no carry-on baggage. They had nobody over the age of 60 and nobody under the age of 18,” said Duckworth, a former Army helicopter pilot who lost both her legs in the Iraq war.
“They didn’t have anybody with a disability. Of course they were able to evacuate the aircraft in 90 seconds,” she said.
With how overstuffed the interior of planes has become since the check-bag fees got so high, I think it would silly not to simulate that much more stuff. Empty bags in all the overheads and stuffed bags under every seat.