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A new study has revealed that the increase in seniors taking to the skies could potentially risk the safety of other passengers on board — sparking concerns over whether airlines can continue to meet the required 90-second emergency evacuation mandate.
Over the last few decades, the average life expectancy within the United States has risen to nearly 80 years old — and the post-covid era has shown that travel has become a priority for at least 70% of the population aged 50 and above.
With the surge in older travelers flocking on board, scientists have suggested that elderly travelers should be spread across a plane’s seating chart for the safety of everyone on board, according to Fox News.
In the unlikely event of an emergency, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) requires an aircraft to evacuate within 90 seconds — but experts fear that the growing number of elderly passengers could drastically slow this process down.
A group of international researchers recently simulated 27 different evacuation scenarios in the event of a dual-engine fire on an Airbus A320 — the most common narrow-body aircraft in the world.
The team compared three different cabin layouts with different ratios and distributions of passengers aged 60 and above — and published their findings in AIP Advances, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Institute of Physics
While a dual-engine fire emergency is rare on commercial airlines — study co-author Chenyang Zhang, Ph.D. of the University of Calgary warned that “History has shown that dual-engine failures and emergencies such as the famous ‘Miracle on the Hudson’ involving Captain [Chesley] Sullenberger, can happen and lead to severe consequences.”
The results showed that where an elderly person sits on the plane — as well as the amount of elderly people on board — had the most drastic impact on evacuation time.
The fastest option for evacuation — which still took a whopping 141 seconds to evacuate all passengers — was a layout of 152 passengers, with two rows of first-class seats at the front, and 30 elderly passengers seated evenly throughout the cabin.
Concerningly, even though this was the fastest option to come out of the study, it is still much longer than the mandated 90-second evacuation by the FAA.
“When elderly passengers are unevenly distributed and concentrated in certain areas of the aircraft, their reduced mobility may lead to localized congestion and obstruct the movement of other evacuees,” the study said.
The study also warned that in addition to mobility and cognitive limitations, other factors including impaired vision or hearing; difficulties following signage or interpreting auditory alarms; and a higher susceptibility to panic or injury during high-pressure moments can all delay the timely and safe evacuation of an aircraft.
“Elderly passengers introduce specific challenges in emergency evacuations due to slower reaction times, reduced physical mobility and a higher likelihood of requiring assistance,” the study revealed.
One of the suggestions brought forward by the research team was to offer additional safety briefings to elderly passengers to help streamline the de-boarding process, in the unlikely event of an emergency.
“We hope these findings help airlines proactively mitigate risks,” Zhang said.
“By understanding how passenger distribution affects evacuation, airlines could potentially implement more strategic seating arrangements to optimize safety without compromising operational efficiency.”
With more seniors taking to the skies, these new findings could help shape the future of safe air travel for everyone on board.
Read the full article here
