76fan: So now we are adding a "black wild winter night" to the equation, eh?
What happened to the rest of the majority of the year then?
Why don't you add water spouts/wind farms/gas carriers and hoar fog?
Perhaps Bravo, when he said "offshore" meant the taxi drivers route between rig and shore, no? Hands up, I've never worked the oil rigs as you know it.
I have however flown and instructed MCT techniques, conducted carrier ops at night for weeks on end between still calm mill pond no horizon and SS 10 storm force. Operated as SAR off newfie and the arctic. Flown the caribbean during water spout season. Oh, and flown NVD in the Norwegian Fjords.
So perhaps I am a little naive when it comes to fires and how to deal with them on heavies, LL over water - sorry.
Let me try to understand where people are coming from here: They experience a major engine bay warning. Statistically the evidence provides for the vast majority of fire warnings to be spurious. But, because we are professionals, we treat it for REAL. There are real jets of very hot gas running out of control just yards behind your head and inches above the pax.
In my experience there is very little or NO reason to identify the wrong engine during a fire warning (There may be helos out there that are poorly designed - please advise). Why then would you aggravate the situation by climbing to 500' or above whilst STILL trying to stabilise the fire????
By all means deal with the aftermath at height, but IF you can't put the fire out, why on God's earth would you climb and then decide: Ooops we have a permanent fire onboard, best we ditch???? You have just come from the safest place on earth: 70kts/100'.
Get real guys - think about this (for 2 seconds!).
[Does anyone out there (taking 76Fan's setting) think that conducting a DEF with fire, from 500' on a dark pitch black north sea night, result in a smooth safe landing - ermmm,
I think you would ALL die violently. (even if you were into wind).
Naive eh.......................................................... .......