To all the bigshots who would have blown a slide to evacuate passengers from a uncomfortable but safe environment, go get some help and while your at it, read the definitions of maturity and judgement and what being PIC means. You would have a hard time explaining to the FAA, the media(which seems to be a great source of accurate info according to you), or to a judge at your incompetence trial, why this was the better route than keeping people safely aboard. I was in the lineup, stuck for more than six hours after landing. Our choices were, as I saw them:
1. keep our cool, keep our passengers safe, lobby for a gate or someway to deplane safely. Keep customers informed that we were doing everything, short of evac, to get them off.
2. get irrational, threaten to do something stupid, do something stupid, regret it later when someone is was injured.
We chose the former.
We were fortunate in that we had a light load. Our lavs remained serviceable right up until we deplaned (they were full though) and we had made arrangements to have them serviced if needed. We had water, soda and juices, and beer:beer: , and of course blue chips and biscotti. Our APU was on the entire time and the cabin remained comfortable, and more importantly, safe.
No one, particularly those of us that were out there will defend what happened. But to anyone who would have blown a slide, you really need to stop and consider the ramifications of your actions before you fire off an ill conceived decision like that. This was not a V1 cut that needed instant action. Dealing with bad press because of management decisions is one thing. Trying to defend a stupid decision that results in injuries, made in haste because you're pissed off at a situation is much more difficult. We all know the statistics of passenger injury during evacs. Injuries would have happened. I could go on and on, but there are those who "get it" and those who never will. Your passenger SAFETY comes first, comfort second. You are the PIC of that aircraft, not the planet, and you have to do what is best for your passengers, even when they want to act like children and evac a safe airplane.
To anyone who brings up the lame "you lack a union so you were afraid for your job" argument my response is this: IT NEVER ENTERED MY MIND.
My company has a HUGE, well deserved black eye and is taking the criticism straight on, not deflecting it to other entities. I have not and will not respond to the criticism being heaped on JB. We deserve it. My rant is directed at the monday morning quarterbacks who were not there, attacking the professionals who were there. If you are "afraid" to jump to work on us because "we lack the balls to make the tough decisions" fine. Have fun walking to work, because I can't think of a single airline off the top of my head that hasn't had an accident, incident, "hostage event", cargo fire, etc. Hopefully your airline goes everywhere you need to go, because the rest of us in the industry are incompetent, according to your high school mentality definition of judgement.
