An even distribution of seats for elderly passengers near exits could be essential for achieving the shortest evacuating time from airplanes in the cases of emergencies, a new study finds.
Aviation authorities recommend that passengers evacuate and reach the ground within 90 seconds in the case of emergencies.
However, the growing number of elderly airline passengers poses a challenge to achieving this, researchers say.
Previous research has warned that older people dealing with cognitive decline can affect situational awareness and delay decision making during evacuations.
Their reduced dexterity can be exacerbated during high-stress situations, scientists warn.
In a new study, researchers simulated 27 different evacuation scenarios in case of a dual-engine fire in an Airbus A320, one of the most common narrow-body aircraft in the world.
They compared three different cabin layouts with different ratios of passengers over the age of 60 and different distributions of those passengers.
The simulations revealed that the fastest evacuation option for a layout accommodating 152 passengers, including 30 elderly passengers, was achieved when the elderly were evenly distributed throughout the cabin.
However, even this required 141 seconds for all the passengers to reach the ground, much longer than the time recommended by aviation regulators, say researchers, including those from the University of Sydney.
“Higher elderly ratios and poor seating arrangements led to longer evacuation times and uneven exit usage,” researchers wrote.
“The results demonstrate that both the proportion and the cabin location of elderly passengers affect exit usage, congestion patterns, and flow distribution,” they wrote.
In the study, scientists created full-scale computer-aided design models of the Airbus A320 cabin.
They then used Pathfinder, an industry-standard software for evacuation modelling, to simulate passengers’ behaviour during a double-engine failure.
“While a dual-engine fire scenario is statistically rare, it falls under the broader category of dual-engine failures and critical emergencies in aviation,” said Chenyang (Luca) Zhang, one of the authors of the study.
“History has shown that dual-engine failures and emergencies, such as the famous ‘Miracle on the Hudson’ involving Captain Sullenberger, can happen and lead to severe consequences,” Dr Zhang said. Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger is the pilot who famously landed a commercial airline on the Hudson River over a decade ago.
Scientists hope the new findings can help further accelerate the de-boarding process, for instance, by offering additional safety briefings to elderly passengers.
“Our study focuses on these low-probability but high-impact events to ensure the highest safety standards,” Dr Zhang said.
In further studies, they hope to conduct more simulations adding another vital layer to evacuation modelling, incorporating the behaviour of children, infants, and pregnant women.
“We hope these findings help airlines proactively mitigate risks,” Dr Zhang said.
“By understanding how passenger distribution affects evacuation, airlines could potentially implement more strategic seating arrangements to optimise safety without compromising operational efficiency,” he added.