By the time he and I got out of the aircraft we were surrounded by really big Air Force Crash/fire trucks. All the fire suppression foam nozzles were pointed at the main gear and other firemen were unrolling hoses from the truck.
They will deploy hoses as a precaution seeing as, 1 there was smoke visible, 2 you were on stand, 3 you had pax and 4 they were tipped out by ATC or whoever, better to be ready in case it does go up than getting caught with your pants down. Quick question, how long can the brake temps keep rising after you land? They may seem eager, but, it only takes a couple of minute roll up a hose or two, it takes a lot longer to justify why you didn't in a court of law.
I grabbed the closest transit alert guy and told him to tell the fire trucks not to spray the foam until I gave the word. He was jumping around and yelling that we needed to evacuate the aircraft.
I hope to god you
never see anyone pouring FOAM onto a wheel brake assembly fire. All the foam does is insulates the assemblies and helps increase the heat.
The guys in the crash trucks were annoyed that they were not allowed to bury the 727 in foam.
I doubt they were annoyed, have you ever seen a wheel brake assembly fire, scary as hell especially is the fuseable plugs fail to do there job. If you ever get a chance to see the video taken from the A340 600 RTO test you will see what I mean, the guys on the ground found out adrenalin is brown and can run down your leg and the aircraft suffered substantial damage.
