4.4 Evacuation Time
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Statutory Documents - IMO Publications and Documents - International Codes - DSC Code - Code of Safety for Dynamically Supported Craft – Resolution A.373(X) - Chapter 4 - Accommodation and Escape Measures - 4.4 Evacuation Time

4.4 Evacuation Time

  4.4.1 The provisions for evacuation, together with the proposed evacuation procedures, should be submitted to the Administration for consideration at an early stage in the design of the craft.

  4.4.2 If the Administration consider it necessary, a calculated abandon craft time may be ascertained at the design stage to ensure that the structural fire protection in accordance with 7.2.5 is adequate.

  • (a) Where there are no more reliable data, the calculated abandon craft time should include the time necessary to launch, inflate and secure a survival craft ready for embarkation plus the time taken to fill the survival craft to its required capacity allowing 5 seconds per person; or the calculated abandon craft time should be the time taken to fill the survival craft to its required capacity allowing 10 seconds per person, whichever is greater.

  • (b) Where, for structural reasons, or where there are insufficient crew members for each survival craft to be simultaneously prepared, the calculated abandon craft time should be taken as the sum of the times taken for those survival craft not so simultaneously prepared.

  • (c) Where simultaneous preparation of survival craft is employed, the Administration should ensure that at least one crew member is available at each embarkation point for organizing the embarkation of passengers into survival craft. In addition to the master, the radio operator should not be regarded as a crew member for this purpose. in all cases, the Administration should ensure compatibility with 4.3 dealing with escape routes.

  4.4.3 The Administration should require a practical demonstration that in a reasonably representative situation the survival craft can be deployed and the occupants of the dynamically supported craft evacuated into them in a time suitably related to the time for which fire hazard areas are designed to contain fire. The evacuation time should be demonstrated by an evacuation test which should be performed either with the full complement of crew and passengers, or by a series of partial evacuations using the number of persons at each exit for which that exit is designed, with due concern for the problems of mass movement or panic.

  4.4.4 Any procedures on which certification is based should be scheduled in the Technical Manual.


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