If a slide does not fully inflate, what should the FA do?

If a slide does not fully inflate, what should the FA do?

• A. Tear it away and abandon it
• B. Use it as an apron slide
• C. Ignore it and proceed
• D. Use it as a liferaft

Answer: (B)

When a slide doesn’t inflate fully, the goal is to evacuate passengers quickly and safely using whatever still functions. A partially inflated slide can still serve as a usable exit path if you treat it as an apron slide—deploy it and direct passengers to step onto the slide and slide down to the ground. This keeps the evacuation moving and provides a stable route off the door, rather than leaving the exit unusable or forcing people to clamber over a malfunctioning device. Tearing it away would lose a potential exit path and create unnecessary risk, and ignoring it would waste a usable resource. Using the slide as a liferaft would only apply to water evacuations, so on land the apron slide approach is the correct course.

When a slide doesn’t inflate fully, the goal is to evacuate passengers quickly and safely using whatever still functions. A partially inflated slide can still serve as a usable exit path if you treat it as an apron slide—deploy it and direct passengers to step onto the slide and slide down to the ground. This keeps the evacuation moving and provides a stable route off the door, rather than leaving the exit unusable or forcing people to clamber over a malfunctioning device. Tearing it away would lose a potential exit path and create unnecessary risk, and ignoring it would waste a usable resource. Using the slide as a liferaft would only apply to water evacuations, so on land the apron slide approach is the correct course.