Smoke / Fire on deck

[Turbine Cowboy]

Hi Y'all,


In case we are faced with smoke of an un-known source or the girls in the back are fighting a fire in the lav, is there a Mandatory time period (stated by the FAR's) during which we must put the craft on the ground?


TC

[keithl]

Just an interested bystander on this one, but - how could there be? What are they going to do if you're 5 mins over but safe?

It's not quite like having an alternate within 90mins, or whatever, is it?

[Old Smokey]

No.

Commonsense / Airmanship says ASAP if the fire is uncontrollable.

Commonsense / Airmanship says As Soon As Reasonable if the fire has been controlled, and reasonably believed to be contained.

[alf5071h]

Extract from: "The emergency and abnormal situations project"; last seen via NASA, - use Google search

"The Transportation Safety Board (TSB) of Canada studied 15 in-flight fires that occurred over 31 years (TSB, 2003). The Board determined that the average amount of time between the detection of an on-board fire and the point at which the aircraft ditched, conducted a forced landing, or crashed was 17 minutes. Seventeen minutes is not a lot of time to complete a diversion from cruise altitude, and half of these flights had less than that amount of time".

NB SR111 (MD11) crashed 17 min after the first detection of smoke.

Quotes from TSB investigation / safety recommendations re SR 111: “Appropriate regulatory authorities take action to ensure that industry standards reflect a philosophy that when odour / smoke from an unknown source appears in an aircraft, the most appropriate course of action is to prepare to land the aircraft expeditiously.”

“Appropriate regulatory authorities ensure that emergency checklist procedures for the condition of odour / smoke of unknown origin be designed so as to be completed in a timeframe that will minimize the possibility of an in-flight fire being ignited or sustained.”