A321
Flight Attendant Current
Communication Breakdown; Confusion
Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural FAR; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Flight Deck / Cabin / Aircraft Event Other / Unknown
Flight Crew Became Reoriented
Human Factors
Upon arrival we sat on a taxiway for quite a lengthy time. Aircraft resumed taxiing; making lots of turns and stops. The arrival announcements had been done; passengers were complying; by staying seated and bags stowed. The aircraft came to a stop; several bells went off and the seat belt sign was turned off. I made the 'disarm door' announcement; turned the cabin lights to bright and disarmed the 1R. When I was ready to disarm 1L I looked out the door window; I did not see ANYTHING!!! I heard the engine running but that is not unusual. I looked again to see if I had made a mistake and the seat belt sign was actually still on-- NO it wasn't; so I called the flight deck. I asked Captain if we were at the gate. He replied NO and I told him we had gotten several bells and the seat belt sign was off. He turned on the sign; I re-armed my 1R; made an announcement that there was a malfunction with our bell system; we needed everyone to take their seats; [and] we were resuming the taxi. Most of the bags were down already. We closed the overheads. There was no way; or time; to put the bags back; as we were moving again. I felt the passengers being seated were more important; at this moment. We did not have an option to stow bags. It was not a safe situation; if an evacuation had been warranted we would have had a lot of bags going down slides (they wouldn't have had to waste time to get them; they already had them-- a little sarcasm- given the number of bags that came off). Once we did reach our gate; the sign went off again and I made the door disarm announcement. Needless to say; they deplaned quickly because they had all their items ready. Captain was very apologetic; He said there was an aircraft taxiing towards us at one point; he reached up to turn off the nose gear light; and inadvertently hit the 'seat belt sign' switch. When I explained; to him; what had happened in the cabin; he said we did what we could have; given the circumstances. He wouldn't have been able to stop long enough for us to get everything stowed. I can tell you; we held our breath until we were safely at the gate. I might have seen that we were a long way from the terminal if I had looked out the 1R door before disarming it; but that is NOT part of the procedure at that door. When I did look out 1L; which was when I noticed that there were NO lights; and NO terminal. I relied solely on the bells and seat belt sign being turned off. The viewing ports/windows on the Airbus doors - do NOT look out; unless you are bent over looking outside- instead; from a seated position; you see the ground- NOT the surrounding area.
After landing and a lengthy taxi the aircraft is stopped and the seat belt sign is turned off. The Lead Flight Attendant makes the arrival announcement and disarms door 1R before turning to door 1L and discovering the aircraft is not at the gate and the passengers are all standing with their luggage in the aisle. The Captain had inadvertently turned off the seatbelt sign while attempting to turn off the taxi light.