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Old 31st Jul 2007, 19:12
  #15 (permalink)  
NutLoose
 
Join Date: Feb 2006
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Rigga

When a little SNUF crashed at Laarburch in the late 90's (I think it was the very last before LBH closed) - the runway was closed for two weeks while several dinky little hangar sweepers were written-off gathering all the Carbon Fibres from the floor.
That was just one single seat Harrier!
Notably - all groundcrew ran away from the crash site and site guards had to have medical tests afterwards.
The resin in the structure is the flammable substance with regard to fires - The Fibres that float up with the smoke just clog your lungs for life.
You may not be aware of it as it may be before your time, it is worse than that, when the first plastic Harrier ploughed in ( into a wood), crash and smash went out to recover the parts without any knowledge of the dangers.......

Indeed no one had, they walked around collecting parts and kicking up dust unprotected....The fibres do not just clog your lungs, they are not degradable they are hard, sharp and unremovable, they literally shred your lungs from the inside out with their movement........

I seem to remember if memory serves me correctly ( I could be wrong, its a long time ago) the SGT in charge lost something like 40% lung capacity over 6 months and the rest of the poor beggars faired no better...after that it was full suits and masks to prevent it happening again.....

That is why they RAN AWAY... they are better informed than your average Airman, if you see them running away from another accident, join em, they know what they are doing.

As a footnote, an Airline I know near me had a tail incident with a catering truck that resulted in the horizontal stab being written off, they donated it to a well known University...... A friend worked there and in passing mentioned they were going to section it as a training aid...... Luckily I was able to warn him in time and it was stopped until full protection was obtain, information gathered and it could be carried out safely, I hope that I may have saved some other unfortunates suffering the same fate as that RAF team.......... Nasty stuff, stay well away from it if it's damaged in a crash.. I look on it as 10% worse than asbestos.

Much more should be published to warn people dealing with it.
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