Well this is my point and question really, vilas. Electronic circuits can emit what we in the business* used to call "loud brown smells", when a component has failed, is getting too hot, breaking down and emiting fumes, but which stop when you remove the power. However, if the insulation, resin, or plastic parts on a circuit board have caught fire and are burning, (ie flames are present), then simply turning off the electricity supply is not going to stop that.
Or are you saying that any and all parts of all aircraft avionics and avionics bays are constructed from non-flammable materials? I don't know if they are or not.
I've practised avionics smoke and fumes removal many times in the SIM, but the thought of actual avionics fire and the lack of remotely operated extinguishers in the avionics bay has only just occurred to me. Airbus A330 has a BCF in there, but one of us would have to climb down in there with smoke hood on etc., and there is nothing about tackling an avionics fire in the QRH, except a vague statement:
"IF SMOKE SOURCE IMMEDIATELY OBVIOUS, ACCESSIBLE AND EXTINGUISHABLE:
FAULTY EQPT.............................................ISOLATE".
We have certainly never been trained to go down there in flight.
* I was an electronics engineer in a previous life.
Last edited by Uplinker; 11th Apr 2014 at 11:42.