Gentlemen-
Let me share a few thoughts from a man who designed bits and pieces of the missing airplane, and probably bits and pieces of half the jets you folks fly on.
You should be highly suspicious of these stories about fires. Have any of you folks ever seen a cargo compartment smoke test? Modern jetliners will detect a burnt napkin in a space the size of a living room in under 3 minutes.
You should be highly suspicious of stories of large volumes of smoke propagating out of the cargo compartment. That’s because after we supplier types detect a teensy puff of smoke in all that big space, the airframer types goes back and flood it with smoke so dense you can hardly see and makes sure not one bit of smoke comes up into the passenger compartment.
Those folks at Hamilton aren’t sitting still, neither. Once we find smoke, they turn off the air conditioning fans and turn up the packs to keep smoke downstairs.
Now you’re going to say to me, what about Swissair? To which I’ll say, no modern jetliner is lined with insulation blankets made of tinder and oily rags, and no competent designer wires up a disreputable pile of entertainment boxes so the breakers won’t trip when it arcs.
Did the fire burn a hole in the fuselage and decompress it? Well, I have to say I followed the 787 lithium battery incident in great detail and was privileged to see pictures of the damage. That fire didn’t burn through a plastic fuselage. I would say it beggars the imagination to come up with a fire that burns through an aluminum skin without setting off a smoke detection a considerable time previous.
What about carbon monoxide? Well, you’re going to have to tell me what could generate CO in the airplane without making detectable smoke. Have you ever been on a jetliner when an engine leaked some of that wonderful fireproof oil they use? It’s a smell you’re not going to forget, let me tell you!
Now you’re going to say, what about a fire in the avionics? Most new jetliners automatically goes into smoke override, and the 777 is no exception. I have not personally witnessed it, but I’m told the override clears smoke so dense you can’t see the instruments in under 90 seconds.
And now let’s talk wiring – did you know that we have to supply extra long wire bundles for critical equipment? That’s because the airframers have to meet FAA separation requirements. So now your undetected fire has to burn through two different redundant wire bundles kept over 12 feet apart. That’s a darned big undetected fire! This is a modern jetliner – everything is multiply redundant to the point of absurdity.
If that isn’t enough, read this excellent post by Albert Driver, who covers all the points I didn’t:
http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/5...ml#post8396452
And auraflyer:
http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/5...ml#post8401172
Now I can’t say there isn’t some magic bullet that takes out the transponder and disables ACARS and depressurizes the airplane but somehow leaves the plane able to fly to fuel exhaustion after making several apparently commanded turn. Maybe some near impossible common mode failure in the load management system shut down a dozen isolated, multiply redundant systems without bringing up the backups. But I’ll tell you, it’s darned hard to believe.