Guidelines on evaluating passenger evacuation possibilities in aviation incidents involving fires

Abstract

Accident analysis of survived people shows that the main causes of fire death are the hazardous effects and consequences of panic attacks which usually occur in such situations. The passengers are killed by heat and toxicity of combustion products. This depends on the materials used in an aircraft’s construction, especially for interior decoration. The time available for the survival of passengers depends on the size of the fire load in the cabin of the aircraft, and it is determined by the characteristics of the materials. In case of fire, polymeric materials are flammable and emit large amounts of heat and smoke which contain poisonous gases that are the main causes of death. With the development of fire, the gas temperature changes in the volume of passenger compartment; therefore, it is necessary to set the dependence of the occurrence of death from heat.