Vegas plane fire passengers escaped with lives — and bags

While flight crews tell people to leave belongings behind in an evacuation, pilots say they seem increasingly inclined to grab whatever they brought on board.

Though the evacuation was swift, officials said Wednesday that 27 of the 170 passengers or crew on board required hospital treatment for cuts, bruises or other minor injuries, mostly from the evacuation slides.

The chief of the Association of Flight Attendants union, which does not represent the British Airways crew, said she expects federal investigators will find that baggage slowed down the evacuation and caused some of the injuries.

"Flight attendants are the first line of defense in emergencies," he said, declining to address whether the agency believed emergency-evacuations-with-bags were an increasing problem that merited any regulatory action or public education campaign.

Airlines vary in whether their preflight briefings tell passengers to abandon belongings in an evacuation, according to Stephen Schembs, the flight attendant union's government affairs director.