自己的行李比別人的命更重要 When bags take priority over people

“Move quickly to the closest usable exit, taking nothing with you.” Yet here again are images of passengers trundling suitcases and carrying hand luggage across the runway, after evacuating a British Airways aircraft that caught fire before take-off at Las Vegas.

“快速走到離你最近的可用出口，不要攜帶任何物品。”然而，英國航空公司(British Airways)的一架飛機因在拉斯維加斯起飛前着火而進行疏散後，這樣的情景又一次出現：飛機跑道上的乘客們拖着行李箱，拿着手提行李。

The last time such safety breaches were publicised was after the fatal crash of an Asiana Airlines jet in San Francisco in 2013. Some commenters on social media even attributed passengers’ thoughtlessness to a Chinese tendency to put material things ahead of human lives (Chinese nationals accounted for half those on the flight).

上一次媒體曝光這樣的違反安全規定現象，是在2013年一架韓亞航空(Asiana Airlines)飛機在舊金山發生致命撞擊事故後。一些社交媒體上的評論者甚至將乘客的輕率之舉歸咎於中國人把財物看得比人命重的傾向（航班上的乘客有一半爲中國籍）。

If nothing else, the BA accident has disproved that slur: under pressure, the British are just as capable of the same act of stupidity.

撇開別的不談，英國航空的事故至少駁斥了上述詆譭：在壓力之下，英國人也會幹出同樣的蠢事。

Jacob Steinberg, a Guardian journalist who was on the BA flight, gently admonishes critics: “If you weren’t there, how do you know how you would have reacted? People do odd things when they panic.”

乘坐了此次航班的《衛報》(Guardian)記者雅各布斯坦伯格(Guardian journalist)溫和地責備批評者：“如果你不在現場，你怎麼知道你會作何反應？人們在驚慌的時候會做奇怪的事情。”

True. One Asiana passenger recalled he had gathered his belongings out of habit. When we are allowed to carry so much, and of such material value, on to aircraft, it may be natural to grab those things before exiting. In the end, the Asiana accident report did not refer to the problem.

的確。一名當時在韓亞航空航班上的乘客回憶，他收拾自己的東西只是出於習慣。如果我們被允許攜帶那麼多的貴重物品上飛機，在離開前拿走這些東西或許也是自然而然的。最後，韓亞航空的失事報道並未提及這個問題。

But plenty of other incidents are complicated, sometimes fatally, by bag-toting passengers. A study of 46 evacuations from June 2000 found half of passengers tried to take items with them, including large framed pictures and musical instruments.

但乘客在事故發生時依然帶走物品的行爲讓其他許多事故複雜化，有時這是致命的。有人研究了2000年6月以後的46次疏散，發現有一半的乘客試圖帶上個人物品，包括大相框和樂器。

As pilot and author Patrick Smith has written: “Leave your stuff. It will all be returned to you later. [If] it winds up incinerated, well, you should be happy to have lost it. Lest it have been you in there.”

飛行員兼作家帕特里克史密斯(Patrick Smith)寫過這樣的文字：“把你的東西留下。之後自會歸還給你。（如果）它最終燒成了灰燼，你應該爲失去它感到高興。否則就是你在那裏了。”

Happily, there were no fatalities in the BA fire. But if I had been the last passenger out, I might well have asked those in front of me why their carry-ons came first.

所幸英國航空的這次飛機起火事故中沒有人死亡。但如果我是最後出來的乘客，我很可能要問問我前面的人，爲什麼他們的行李在我之前離開。