it s seconds. just within about two minutes everybody was up and out of their seats and starting to exit. here is the issue with this and the reason it came so quickly. is the fact it was a solid enough collision that not only the tip of the wing hit but the structure, the spar, the main wing spar is cracked. you can tell that that happened because the fuel cells go through there and the connection to the fuel cells are in the fuselage of the aircraft underneath where people are sitting. it ruptured some fuel cells or fuel attachments and that started pouring fuel into the area. combine that with some winds that were going on at the time, too. and that can spread the fire much more rapidly. so we are talking about just second to react, to get out of there, leave your personal belongings behind and get out of that airplane as quickly as possible. david, as a safety inspector, former safety inspector, can you talk about what are the next steps in terms of an
david. if this happened when the plane was actually in the air, what would have happened then? how bad could this have been? we would be looking at a very different sa thecenario. everyone survived. 20 injuries. all released within a day. if this happened in the air. a catastrophic fame year of possibly the wing. if you lack at the damage it could have gotten into the leading edge of the wing into the wing spar. if that fire continued it would certainly penpenetrated. melted the windows on that side. if that continued fueled by the fanning of the flames and oxygen, it could have been ape very serious catastrophic fame year of the whole airplane. scary stuff. you see the pass jen errs waeng across the runway with carry-on language. they re supposed to leave that on the plane. aren t they. walking with it must slow down the evacuation process, no? of course it does. you know this is humannay