Everyone lived, so in that sense the mother and teenager made a right decision. Other decisions may have led to the same outcome, or different outcomes. Your q

Everyone lived, so in that sense the mother and teenager made a right decision. Other decisions may have led to the same outcome, or different outcomes. Your question asks about risk, and the worst kind of risk, namely death of a child. Imagining myself, as a parent, in that situation I would want to move myself and my child away from the structural damage. The small one-time risk of unbuckling and moving away from the hole -- with a deadly but unlikely worst-case -- seems lower than staying near the hole, accepting an unknown risk for an unknown length of time. In other words I can reasonably predict the likelihood of successfully moving a teenager to safety in that situation, whereas I can't reasonably predict the likelihood of more structural damage, or some other threat posed by a hole in the fuselage.