It’s incredibly unlikely that a commercial airplane might crash, but some fliers still want to know whether they will be ordered to remove their shoes if it does and they survive.
This question seems of particular interest to wearers of high heels.
The answer is that you do not have to remove your shoes including high heels just because your plane encounters an emergency situation. In other words, if you are asked to prepare for an emergency landing then keep your shoes on at that point unless the crew tell you to take them off.
You also do not necessarily have to remove your shoes (high heeled or not) if the emergency slides deflate and you need to use them.
But in some circumstances the flight crew might instruct you to remove your shoes – particularly heels – if you’re exiting the plane via the slide.
The reason that you might have to remove high heels before deplaning in an emergency is not because your stilettos might puncture the slide – nowadays the slides are made of sterner stuff – but mainly because chances are you haven’t landed in a place where your heels will do you any good.
And your heels might even be a risk of hurting you or someone else as you exit.
Let me go back in time to explain.
Southern Airways flight 242
Back in the 1970s and possibly earlier, it was standard evacuation procedure for the cabin crew to brief passengers to remove their shoes to prevent damage to evacuation slides.
The issue was examined by the NTSB in its aircraft accident report into the crash of Southern Airways flight 242 in New Hope, Georgia on April 4, 1977.
The aircraft lost both engines in a severe thunderstorm. The plane crashed with the loss of 72 lives, including crew, passengers and persons on the ground.
A dual engine failure of this kind was such a remote possibility that it was unheard of for commercial aviation at the time.
Once it was certain that both engines had failed, the flight attendants briefed passengers on emergency crash landing and evacuation procedures. The NTSB also found that they instructed the passengers to remove their shoes to prevent damage to the evacuation slides during evacuation.
Importantly, this instruction to remove shoes was given to all passengers about all shoes. It was not just limited to women wearing high heels.
However unfortunately the instruction resulted in the feet of a number of survivors being cut and also burned because they had no shoes for protection when the plane crash landed and they needed to evacuate.
The NTSB found that the instruction was “in accordance with standard evacuation procedures”.
The NTSB also found that the fight attendants had acted commendably for initiating a comprehensive emergency briefing for the protection of the passengers and that this contributed to the number of survivors.
But the report did not address whether the standard evacuation procedures were appropriate.
American Airlines flight 1572
The NTSB did not again address the question of shoe removal on evacuation until nearly two decades later.
The occasion was its report into the crash of American Airlines flight 1572 on November 12, 1995. The airplane had collided with trees on its final approach to the runway at Bradley International Airport, in East Granby, Connecticut.
This was a different situation to flight 242 because the collision was unexpected. The flight crew did not therefore brief the passengers for an emergency evacuation before the aircraft was on the ground.
However once the impact had occurred, the flight attendants shouted to passengers to remove their shoes (regardless of the shoe style).
The NTSB noted that American Airlines was then the only major air carrier that commanded passengers to remove all shoes during an evacuation. It stated that such a policy “may not be in the best interests of safety”.
It is easy to see why.
When the aircraft was evacuated, the escape routes were partially blocked by the passengers’ shoes, causing passengers (including a woman carrying a 10-month old baby) to stumble or trip over piles of shoes in the aisle and galley areas.
About a third of the passengers who completed questionnaires for the NTSB stated that shoe removal either slowed their evacuation or that shoes in the aisle obstructed their exit.
The NTSB found that this could have caused injuries or loss of life in the case of an interior fire or other critical situation.
The report stated:
The practice of commanding all passengers to remove shoes during evacuations was originally targeted primarily at high heeled shoes, and was intended to prevent slide punctures. But modern slide design and strengthened fabric material now used in slide manufacturing make the policy outdated. In addition, (with the exception of high heeled shoes) safety is served by passengers wearing shoes because they can exit an airplane and move away from an evacuated airplane more readily.
It may still be appropriate for crewmembers to instruct female passengers to remove high-heeled shoes that could cause injuries during an evacuation. Experience has shown that ankle and leg injuries are more likely to result from passengers wearing high heels. In addition, other injuries could also occur to rescue personnel and passengers, as the passenger wearing high heels slides down to waiting individuals at the bottom of the slide.
NTSB safety recommendation
On December 3, 1996 the NTSB issued Safety Recommendation No.: A-96-140 addressed to the FAA.
It recommended that the FAA “Develop a uniform policy on shoe removal during evacuations, and require that all operators train their flight attendants to issue commands during an emergency evacuation consistent with that policy.”
In commenting to the New York Times at the time, the director of the office of aviation safety at the NTSB, Bernard S. Loeb explained that slides had gotten stronger, and that the removal of heels could be more of a problem than it solved.
Somewhat optimistically he also stated that: ”We think for the most part the era of spiked heels is over with”.
By the year 2000, the NTSB noted that the recommendation had been “Closed—Acceptable Action”.
But what action was actually taken?
FAA safety recommendations
The FAA’s current safety information includes the following evacuation instructions (last updated August 2022):
- Follow floor lighting to exit.
- Jump feet first onto evacuation slide. Don’t sit down to slide. Place arms across your chest, elbows in, and legs and feet together. Remove high-heeled shoes.
- Exit the aircraft and clear the area.
The instructions are odd because they state “remove high-heeled shoes” only after instructing the passenger to jump feet first onto the slide. Presumably the heels are meant to come off first.
In the end, the best answer is to always follow the instructions of the crew in an emergency.
This means keeping your shoes on, even on an evacuation slide and even if they are high heels, unless you are told to remove them.
Delta Air Lines flight 1086
An example of how it is meant to work can perhaps be found in crash of Delta Air Lines flight 1086.
This flight crashed into the airport perimeter fence when landing at LaGuardia Airport, New York on March 5, 2015.
The NTSB noted without comment that a flight attendant “asked passengers wearing high heels to remove them (in case the wing was slippery)”. The passengers all safely evacuated.