“Although the dual-engine fire scenario is statistically rare, it falls into the broad category of dual-engine failure and critical emergencies in aviation. History has shown that emergencies such as dual-engine failure and the famous ‘Miracle on the Hudson’ involving Captain Sullenberger can occur and have serious consequences,” said co-author Chenyang (Luca) Zhang of the University of Calgary in Canada. “Our study focuses on these low-probability but high-impact events to ensure the highest safety standards.”
Zhang et al. Two passenger categories were created: older adults aged 60 and over and people under 60. They devised three different proportions of those two categories – youth-dominated, equally balanced, and elderly-dominated evacuation scenarios – to capture more realistic travel dynamics and exclude marginal cases (for example, all-non-elderly or all-elderly scenarios). For each of them, the model looked at three different seating patterns: one where elderly passengers are evenly distributed in areas near the exits; One where the elders were concentrated in the middle of the cabin, away from the exit door; and one where elderly passengers were randomly distributed throughout the cabin.
None of the conditions tested resulted in an evacuation time within the FAA-mandated 90 seconds. The shortest evacuation time – with 20 percent of elderly passengers evenly distributed near the exits – was 141 seconds. The longest duration – which included 80 percent elderly passengers and similar exit seat distribution – was 218.5 seconds.
Zhang et al. Acknowledge that their study has some limitations. For example, not all elderly passengers are the same, and their models do not include the need for crew assistance for reduced mobility or similar issues. And because they only focused on dual-engine fire scenarios, their findings may not generalize to other evacuation scenarios.
The authors suggest that adding empirical data from real aircraft environments under controlled conditions could make future simulations more accurate. Future research should also test the effectiveness of various behavioral interventions, such as providing additional safety briefings tailored to elderly travelers. Airbus and other aircraft manufacturers may consider redesigning cabins with designated seating areas for elderly passengers, giving them easier access to exits, better visibility, wider aisles or perhaps armrests to aid mobility.
AIP Advances, 2026. DOI: 10.1063/5.0310405 (About DOI).
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