And smoke hoods, too

The SQ006 survivors' website includes a gripping essay about the harsh life-or-death choices faced in the crash by flightcrew and passengers (see http://www.anycities.com/sq006/reconstruction.html). Herewith, three samples:

"There was mass confusion as passengers met the crew from the lower deck coming up. No one could see anything or knew what to do in the choking smoke. A few passengers who were stuck in the aisles ...started to climb over the seats back toward the blocked exit doors."
"Steward Tay stated: 'I ran back to the front [of the plane] and saw a Caucasian man with his clothes burnt off, just like that famous Vietnam war photo of the naked girl screaming from napalm burns.' "
Passenger Diaz, at the front of first class, recalled that: "As the plane was sliding to a halt, the flames were springing up everywhere. My video screen monitor melted in front of me ... the entire cabin was filled with a thick acrid black smoke and I could barely see. I breathed, out of necessity, a lot of smoke as I stumbled blindly to the door."
To mitigate mortality, among other improvements (e.g., better emergency procedures training for flight attendants), the surviving SQ006 passengers noted that the thick smoke caused widespread panic. Among their recommendations:

"Smoke hoods (such as the EVAC-U8 from Brookdale International Systems) should be mandatory emergency equipment for passengers and crew and would have reduced mortality in this crash probably by as much as 50-70 percent."
"In the event that Recommendation 1 is not implemented, airlines should issue smoke hoods to all crew so that they are better equipped to coordinate evacuation of passengers and do not panic in the face of adverse smoke conditions."
"At the very least, passengers and crew should be advised to carry their own smoke hoods and international airports should provide space to vendors of smoke hoods."
Apropos of these recommendations, Canada-based Brookdale has under development a combined emergency oxygen/smoke hood. Dubbed the DIX-EVAC, the unit stores in the passenger service unit. Should a loss of pressurization occur in flight, the unit drops down, just like the "little yellow cups" with which passengers already are familiar, and provides an emergency oxygen supply. Should the cabin fill with smoke, the unit serves also as a smoke hood, and can be detached from its umbilical, enabling the passenger to evacuate the cabin while being protected by the smoke hood from the heat and choking agents from an in-cabin conflagration.

One of the virtues of this dual-use unit is that it stores out of sight, thereby overcoming one of the airlines' major objections - that if they provided smoke hoods (say, in underseat pockets), many passengers would steal them. (For more on the DIX-EVAC, contact Brookdale's Tony Smithbower) >> Smithbower, e-mail smithbower@evac-u8.com <<