Egyptair B772 Cockpit fire July 2011
 

Accident: Egyptair B772 at Cairo on Jul 29th 2011, cockpit fire

Final report out: here

Very lucky it happened on the ground...

Cigarette?

Not uncommon in Egypt...

Thanks for the analysis. That's saved me the trouble of reading 172 pages of the report.

In fairness, according to the translated statements, the F/O testified that there were no source for fire or ignition in the cockpit prior to the fire; and the Captain explicitly testified that neither he nor the F/O were smokers.

Pity really as nowhere does it mention a cigarette. It pays a lot of attention to a low pressure Oxygen pipe with an internal stainless steel coil.

The Captain said that both he and the FO are non-smokers.

The USN has an incident in its records where a Spanish peanut was accidentally dropped into an oxygen mask and resulted in a flash fire-fortunately not airborne.

Spontaneous combustion of oxygen systems in the presence of oils is not unknown.
Since the actual source of ignition appears to be speculative, I'll offer this as another possibility.

Slightly worrying when no source can be found, possibly the same lack of clarity may be found in the recent B738 cockpit fire in Turkey.

Here is an interesting one......

C-141 Vance AFB 1982

Synopsis: The highly experienced crew was returning to base from a stateside airdrop mission. During some horseplay, cigar ash was introduced into a crew oxygen hose. The resulting oxygen-fed fire ignited floor coverings and filled the cockpit with dense sooty smoke. After some difficulties, the crew was able to recover the aircraft with only minor injuries.

Returning from Pope to Norton after an airdrop mission, the pilot in the left seat decided to light a cigar. The pilot, in the jumpseat, complained and donned his oxygen mask. In response, the left seater covertly disconnected the jumpseater’s mask from the oxygen regulator hose, with the intent of putting smoke into the hose. Accidentally, lit cigar ash entered the oxygen regulator hose, before the hose was reconnected. The jumpseater smelled the smoke and selected "Emergency" on the oxygen regulator. When that didn’t help, he removed the mask to clear the smoke. When he disconnected the mask from the regulator hose, a "2-foot" sheet of fire leapt from the hose. It ignited an oxygen-fed fire that spread to the flooring. To put out the fire, the left seat pilot shut off the crew oxygen system. At about the same time, the engineer while switching to "MAX" airflow, inadvertently hit the bleed duct overheat test switch, shutting off the engine bleed valves and disabling the air-conditioning packs. The crew started a descent but soon became hypoxic. The crew oxygen system was again turned on. The fire reignited with a fireball large enough to melt components on the Flight Engineer’s panel. The crew eventually extinguished the fire, reset the bleed valves, and recovered to the nearest military base. Members of the crew suffered only minor injuries (but major embarrassment).

C-141 Lifetime Mishap Summary

Whoosh ! ! :eek: := :D

Amazing how badly you can screw up & live to (be forced to) tell the tale.

What a fascinating read. :D

JammedStab : may thanks for the link!
Very interesting as it show parts of the US investigation on incidents/accidents reported by other instances.

The Namibia collision with German AF Tu154 description here brings some new elements not avail in the German report.
Even if the " humanitarain " cargo it says it had carried was possibly slightly different in reality ...

Similarly the N'Jamena incident was reported by the French Air force very differently. I am quite sure the US story here is the more correct version.
The amateurism the USAF was having in those days when preparing missions outside the USA always amazed me.

ATCWatcher,

The amateurism of USAF briefings never amazed me until I went to a professional (major airline) outfit that didn't have tax dollars ad nauseum to replace crews and A/C....

You are right, Great Link...Thanks...

The fire triangle - heat - fuel - oxygen.

Kill one, the fire goes out, ergo all three were present in this case.

Oxygen doesn't burn per se, it supports fire - big time...

I know, teaching granny to suck eggs...

Question: Was there any source for fire or ignition in the cockpit before the fire?

Answer: I would like to assure you that the F/O and I are not

Something was behind this answer

Hmmm.... a randomly chosen two Egyptian adult males and neither of them being smokers? The odds of that would be up there with those same two Egyptian males being practising, kaftan-wearing Hare Krishnas.

Truth is a rare commodity in Egyptian Air Accident reports. It may be absent in parts of this one too. Egyptair do seem to keep trashing serviceable aircraft, but it is not their fault apparently!

- it ain't necessarily so. Read about oil and grease and oxygen. A two-sided triangle.

Wasn't there a case of a lightning pilot who took his oxygen mask of to eat his sarnies? Next thing - toasties!

As an ex-Lightning pilot I have no recollection of 'sarnies' - normally too busy twiddling the B-Scope to eat.......................... but I believe a RN pilot had considerable facial burns from an oxy mask and, I think, some sort of greasy ointment on his face (well, you know these airy-fairies:))

NotThe First 777
 

2/26/07. United 777. “Blankets “ignited” beneath floor. Blanket type – PET.
(A brief, see full text at URL http://www.aaib.gov.uk/cms_resources.cfm?file=/AAR%202-2009%20N786UA.pdf
Source; AAIB Report # 2/2009. United Airlines Boeing 777-222, registration N786UA at London Heathrow Airport on 26 February 2007. "Synopsis; The accident occurred during engine start after pushback from the stand. After the right generator came online an electrical failure occurred in the right main bus. The failure resulted in severe internal arcing and short circuits inside the two main power contactors of the right main bus. The heat generated during the failure resulted in the contactor casings becoming compromised, causing molten metal droplets to fall down onto the insulation blankets below (polyethylene terephthalate film (PET) ref pg 9. The insulation blankets ignited and a fire spread underneath a floor panel to the opposite electrical panel (P205), causing heat and fire damage to structure. The insulation blankets behind, below and opposite the P200 power panel had suffered significant fire damage and some sections had charred to ash”, ref pg1.12.1, pg 31.



‘PET’ is due for removal by 2016. Ref. To AD 2008-23-09.

7/6/04. United 777. “Thermal Damage” to Blankets in E&E bay.
(A brief, see full text at URL http://www.ntsb.gov/doclib/recletters/2007/a07_113_116.pdf
Source; NTSB Safety Recommendation Letter A-07-113-116, ref page 2. “The second reported event occurred on July 6, 2004. According to the operator, a post incident inspection performed by a maintenance technician revealed evidence of overheating on the secondary external power receptacle and thermal damage to an adjacent insulation blanket …….”
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I worked on HF comms for various aircraft and that oxygen tube with a steel wire inside concerns me. If the crew had set frequency on the HF on the ground, the antenna tuner would have gone into tune mode telling the HF to transmit a carrier, exciting the entire fuselage with RF until a tune solution was set. RF currents in a fuselage are quite strange, and I remember having odd arcing in screen rooms when testing HFs with as little as 100 watts. A coiled wire would certainly have been enough to generate arcing in the tube filled with oxygen. I sent an analysis to Boeing but never heard back. The analysis of the coiled hose support causing a DC short does not make sense as there were not wiring bundles in contact with the hose. An ignition source excited by the HF in tune mode should certainly be looked at.

A very good post.

What sort of greedy porker would you have to be to need sarnies in a Lightning?

I worked in Cairo for five years. I would say the proportion of smokers in the working population, certainly among the professional classes, is about the same as in the UK.

If two BA pilots said they were non-smokers no-one would question the statement.

The racism displayed by some of the posters on PPRuNe continues to amaze me.

I continue to work there. You are very wrong.

Lazer, I was a radio maintenance airdog for the C5 and C141 many years ago.

On the C5, I can remember seeing bad grounding at the antenna connector for that big, bad Avco HF R/T hung on a piss-poor rack in the tail.

You could see it - a coronal arc around the base of the PL-259 style connector. It would glow in the dark when your buddy hit the TX line in the avionics bay. You could draw it out farther and create an arc by placing the blade of a screwdriver against the R/T mount and edging it up to the faulted connector - but if you slipped a bit and lost the ground connection to the mount, you'd end up with burn on your hand.

Cheers!
Ray

I posted the C141 mishap to Fear of Landing some time ago and was intrigued to receive the following comment:

ray.... Thanks for that post as I have always wondered if anyone else has seen those effects. They can happen virtually anywhere on the air frame or in the screen room, but a bad ground would certainly excite that local area.