A fiery landing at Alice Springs Airport
Last Update: Thursday, October 18, 2007. 4:48pm ACST
By Nicole Lee
It was a firey landing for a pilot when the right engine of his Shrike Commander caught on fire while landing at Alice Springs Airport last night.
The twin engine plane, which was carrying cargo destined for a local bank caught on fire while the pilot was taxiing to land. It is believed the engine stalled while landing, and caught on fire when the pilot re-started the plane.
The Alice Springs fire brigade was called to the fire at around 12.30am last night and were faced with some difficulty keeping the fire contained.
"There were some difficulties initially because we only carry a certain amount of dry powder...The motor itself actually dropped out onto the tarmac and the fire did impinge onto the fuselage a little bit. Then the airport firies turned up to put out the fire with their foam canons," said John Kleeman, Station Commander at the Alice Springs Fire Station.
John Kleeman who arrived on the scene shortly after the plane had landed, said the pilot was safe but a little shaken.
"I spoke to the pilot when I arrived and after he had vacated...I'd say he was a little bit shook up."
"The fire was slow to start with, it was contained mainly within the motor obviously you have got some concern with fuel loads and also the magnesium which you can't readily put water on."
The Alice Springs Fire Brigade was the first on the scene with the airport fire services arriving shortly afterwards. Simon Hatfield, Operations Manager at the Alice Springs Airport says the amount of overnight traffic coming through the airport isn't enough to warrant an overnight emergency fire service being permanently stationed at the airport.
"I think under the circumstances, it was quite a small event in the scale of things. We don't have that many movements over night, just the odd freight coming in every three to four hours so I think under the arrangements that we have right now they tend to work quite well."
The clean up continues today, with Paul Totani the Chief Engineer at Chart-Air making sure the plane is safe by de-fuelling.
"Basically, the first thing we had to do was just get a wheel to fit it so we could move it off the tarmac and remove the engine which was three quarters of the way out by itself. We had to make the plane safe by removing all the fuel from it, I think it had about 200 litres on board," said Paul.
The incident comes just a week before the airport is due to hold a mock emergency scenario to test response times of local emergency services.