Originally Posted by
de fumo in flammam
Not sure about the 777, but on some types, opening the window and sticking your head/body well outside gives a good view of wing and engines, and to some extent, the gear. In the event of a suspected external fire, I would generally do that.
On the 777 with the flight deck window closed you cannot see even a wingtip from the front seats even if you stick your head hard up against the side window and squash your nose. If you open the window and stick your body out as far as you dare you can just see a bit of outboard engine cowling but no gear. If you ever board the aircraft via steps at door 2 left wait until you are level with the left engine and then look forward to the flight deck, you cannot see any flight deck windows, you only see fuselage due to the curve at the front of the fuselage.
So for all those who felt the crew should have been more aware of the fire, it 's a great theoretical idea but not feasible. The crew can be alerted to a fire in the engine by a fire warning but a fire from spilt fuel underneath the engine is something that cannot be seen from the flight deck. They would need information from an external source like ATC or from someone in the cabin which is what happened.
As in most emergencies things do not always go perfectly. However this thread has tended to focus exclusively on the areas that could have been done better and ignored the bits that were done well and some people have therefore tried to infer it was all done badly. For those who have come out of their sim check and had the training Captain say "Well done, that was perfect, no debrief required " I salute you. I tend to live in the real world where with hindsight things could always be done a bit a better.