I've read through all of these posts since this thread was created.
There are three things that may, or indeed may not, be related to one another.
A mention of sparks seen well before the fire though to be from an aircon unit. If that was correct could that have affected the humidity in the area on that day?
The pinched wire discussions as a possible cause to failure of the ELT unit.
The attachment of the cables from the aircraft to the ground cart. Now it is stated that the power was disconnected and observed to be so by the flight engineer, however my question is whether the connection of those cables presented a passive electrical characteristic of some kind. e.g. a ground connection that was significantly related to a fault condition on that day. Note I've said 'fault' because normally it should not be a problem.
I'm not an avionics engineer, btw, but I have experience of EMC and have tested military gear. Some of EMC work is passive where you listen to signals emitted from a system and decide whether they are supposed to be there or not. Other tests involve introducing electrical conditions to see if anything changes.
Last edited by old dawg; 21st Jul 2013 at 11:31.