Strengths and weaknesses of the emergency evacuation trial for transport airplane certification

Abstract

Safety has always been the key driver for aviation development, based on the permanent commitment of airworthiness authorities, airplane manufacturers, and other intervening agents. One of the established regulations requires demonstrating, at airplane certification level, that all occupants must be able to abandon the aircraft and safely reach the ground in less than 90 s. This rule has always been a matter of debate since it does not represent any accident scenario and just one trial is not statistically meaningful, although airworthiness authorities argue that it is a practical benchmark for consistent evaluation. The research reported here describes the strengths and weaknesses of the requirement and suggests potential modifications.