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Old 2nd Aug 2010, 14:14
  #127 (permalink)  
Flight Safety
 
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Dallas, TX USA
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So, let me see if I understand.

For reasons unknown (in fairly benign weather) the aircraft experienced a hard landing resulting in intact main gear but nose gear collapse. This results in front metal fuselage scraping the runway igniting a fire, but of what we don't know yet. This is followed immediately by dispatch of fire rescue who respond in 35 seconds to start work on the fire. However the top of the fuselage is burned out and 80 tons of cargo is destroyed, before the fire brigade can get the fire put out. Fortunately the pilots have time to get out.

Questions: Was the fire internal or external to the aircraft? Pictures of the aircraft suggest the fire was internal, as there appears to be no visible evidence that a fire occured on the outside of the airframe. That said, was there a fuel spill that ignited by the scraping metal nose, resulting in an external fuel fire? Did fuel also spill intermally and catch fire, resulting in an internal fire and loss of the cargo and top of the fuselage? How fast can fire rescue extinguish an external fuel fire, compared to an internal fuel/cargo fire?

Somewhere along the way as more facts become known this will all make sense, but based on what's known so far this doesn't make sense.
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