How to Respond Safely During an Airplane Evacuation or Turbulence Emergency

Commercial aircraft are built and certified so that a full cabin can be evacuated in 90 seconds, but that number only holds if passengers behave in specific, tested ways. The International Air Transport Association (IATA), with the backing of the United States' Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), launched a global passenger-safety campaign in June 2026 in Rio de Janeiro called "Save a Life, Not a Bag" because survey data showed a gap between what travelers believe they know about evacuations and what they actually do in one.

Follow crew instructions immediately

The core rule repeated across every official source consulted for this guide is the same: when a flight attendant gives an evacuation command, passengers must act on it without hesitation. FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford said safety during an evacuation "is a shared responsibility, and informed, attentive passengers help ensure a faster, safer evacuation," according to the IATA press release announcing the campaign.

What to do — and not do — once an evacuation is called

1. Listen to the crew and respond immediately — do not wait to see what other passengers do.
2. Leave all belongings behind, including bags, laptops and phones, even if they are within reach.
3. Do not stop to film or photograph the situation; IATA lists this as a specific behavior that delays evacuations.
4. Keep aisles and exit paths clear — bags left in the aisle block the people behind you.
5. Never carry a bag, especially a hard-sided or wheeled one, onto an evacuation slide, as it can damage the slide or injure other evacuees.
6. Move to the nearest usable exit, which may not be the one closest to your seat if it is blocked.

Why every second is counted

Under FAA certification rules, any new transport-category aircraft must demonstrate a full evacuation of all passengers and crew, at maximum occupancy, in 90 seconds or less before it can enter commercial service, according to Simple Flying's review of the certification process. The limit traces back to 1960s FAA research showing that a cabin engulfed in post-crash fire stays survivable for only about two minutes before conditions turn lethal; regulators cut that window to 90 seconds to build in a safety margin.

Certification tests are designed to be difficult: only half the exits are available, aisles are scattered with baggage and debris, cabin lighting may be turned off, and the passenger group taking part is not told in advance which doors or slides will be used. In 2006, an Airbus A380 evacuated 873 people within the 90-second limit in what Simple Flying described as the most stringent evacuation test conducted up to that point.

Where real evacuations go wrong

Trained test volunteers know they are safe; real passengers often do not act the same way. The Flight Safety Foundation reported that from 2015 to 2017, 48 of 117 commercial aircraft accidents involved an emergency evacuation, and that passengers repeatedly ignore crew instructions to leave baggage behind. In the January 2018 WestJet evacuation in Toronto, flight attendants repeatedly told passengers to abandon carry-on bags, but "numerous passengers brought carry-on baggage with them, which slowed down the evacuation process," the Foundation reported, citing the Canadian investigation. A separate investigation into a 2005 Air France accident found that many passengers took their carry-on baggage despite specific instructions not to, and a later review of Canadian airline safety briefings found that none of the flights observed had given passengers that specific instruction.

IATA's own 2026 survey illustrates the same gap. While 80% of passengers said they knew what to do in an emergency, only 61% correctly identified leaving all belongings behind as the safest action. About 33% said they had personally witnessed another passenger take baggage during an evacuation, and 22% of that group said they would likely do the same. One in ten respondents admitted they might take a bag despite crew instructions not to, and only 18% knew that 90 seconds is the evacuation benchmark used in certification, while 38% overestimated how much time they would actually have.

Keep your seatbelt on — turbulence is the more common hazard

Evacuations are rare; turbulence is not. According to the FAA data cited by CBS News, turbulence-related injuries in the United States ranged from 5 to 18 per year between 2009 and 2019, and dropped to 5 in 2020 and 6 in 2021 as air travel fell during the pandemic. The sudden jolt from turbulence can injure any passenger or crew member who is not buckled in at the time, regardless of how calm the flight otherwise feels.

Taylor Garland, a spokesperson for the Association of Flight Attendants, told CBS News that passengers should treat the seatbelt sign as a direct safety instruction rather than a suggestion: "You should not be up or going to the bathroom. That sign is on for your safety," she said, adding, "Take that seatbelt sign seriously, anytime it is on you should be seated and with your seatbelt on." Garland also called for airlines to give flight attendants more time to secure the cabin and pause service whenever turbulence is expected, and the FAA says it is separately working to modernize weather reporting and improve pilot turbulence reports.

What to do before you ever board

IATA's campaign also recommends preparing before a flight rather than during one: keep essential small items such as medication, your passport and your keys secured on your person, not packed in overhead luggage. In the same survey, 60% of passengers said they would be less likely to try to grab a bag during an evacuation if those essentials were already on them rather than in the cabin bin.