In an evacuation, there’s one rule every passenger must obey: leave your bags behind. Yet time and again, we’ve seen people drag rolling suitcases and backpacks off planes in emergencies, creating dangerous bottlenecks and slowing the escape of everyone onboard. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has issued a new Safety Alert for Operators reminding airlines to reinforce this critical message with both crew and passengers.

FAA Warns Passengers: Don’t Grab Bags During Aircraft Evacuations

The FAA’s latest alert, SAFO 25003, calls on airlines to emphasize procedures that discourage passengers from retrieving carry-on baggage during evacuations. The agency notes that grabbing bags has been repeatedly observed in real-world evacuations and poses a serious risk to the safety of passengers and crew.

Flight attendants already instruct passengers to leave belongings behind in an emergency, but the FAA wants operators to go further by reinforcing the message in safety demonstrations, briefings, and training. Even a handful of people stopping to pull a roller bag from an overhead bin can puncture slides, block narrow aisles, and turn a 90-second evacuation into a dangerous delay.

A Good Reminder, But Punishment + Enforcement Needed

Recent incidents in the U.S. and abroad, show that many passengers still ignore or misunderstand evacuation instructions when adrenaline spikes. The FAA urges airlines to review and sharpen their scripts, rehearse more realistic drills, and make it unmistakably clear that personal items stay on the aircraft in an emergency.

But I think most passengers already know they should leave items behind…and yet grab them anyway because they face no consequences for doing so other than perhaps ridicule online if the evacuation is captured on video. It seems to me that the only way we can get people to take this reasonable rule seriously is to harshly punish violators.

Reckless endangerment is a criminal offense involving conduct that creates a substantial risk of serious physical injury or death to another person, even without intent to cause harm. Those who take take thier bag(s) during an evacuation should be charged with reckless endangerment even if no one is hurt.

Involuntary manslaughter is the unintentional killing of a person, caused by the defendant’s criminal negligence or recklessness. Those who take take thier bag(s) during an evacuation should be charged with involuntary manslaughter if someone dies because they slowed down the evacuation.

CONCLUSION

Common sense, but worth repeating: if you ever face an evacuation, listen to the crew, move quickly, and leave everything behind. You can replace a bag. You cannot replace a life. I like that the FAA is asking airlines to make this clearer, but we need to go a step further. Violators should face extreme punishment, up to and including reckless endangerment if no one is hurt and involuntary manslaughter if someone dies on account of slowing down the evacuation.