Hangar Fire In Abu Dhabi

[Oakhampton]

Reports of fire today in GAMCO hanger, Qatar Airways, Air Mauritius and Kingfisher all have aircraft inside. Hopefully minor fire with no damage.

[akerosid]

Report on A.net suggests A7-ABV, QR A300 destroyed. No info on other acft.

Tragically, it is also reported - but unconfirmed - that a number of employees may have been killed.

[rabbit01]

my friend works at gamco, my understanding is that an A320 has been completely destroyed by fire.

fire started in aircraft itself, reason yet unknown.

one engineer injured as he was on board at the time,seems he basically had to jump off to escape the fire.

thankfully no fatalaties.

could have been alot worse if it had not een for the fire service,excellant job done to contain fire as 2 other aircraft where in the hanger at the time. Air Mauritious and Kingfisher i think.

A serious incident that could have been alot worse than it actually turned out me thinks...

[SkyTrax2]

Globespan's B763 is down in Abu Dhabi on Maintenance at the moment as well wonder if that was caught up in it.

[rabbit01]

not that i know of....

...last i heard was the aircraft actually broke up and that the tail is scrapping on the floor.

Not an exageration before i get lynched, just what i heard.

pics anyone?

[wastafarian]

quite funny in a way, incestuous relationships.

shake ahmed is owner of gamco, and etihad, and chairman of civil aviation in abu dabi. :}

left hand washes the right

move on folks, nothing to see here. only minor damage, a few paint scratches, say his little soldiers. :mad:

[ARINC]

Sorry to hear about the fire at Gamco....

As a matter of interest Airbus have just installed temporary wireless fire alarms in all the A380's at Hamburg. A large area to have a fire blindspot. This should definately be adopted as best practice.

[Ohbee Wan]

the aircraft involved is a Qatar Airways A300B4-622R, registration A7-ABV that was having a C check in GAMCO. it was being prepared for re-delivery to Ansett, when the incident occured.

[MrBernoulli]

Folks, may I make a small point about something, as I see it so often on these forums. I make it in a spirit of helpfulness, not criticism, so please don't fly off the handle.

The building you service or store an aircraft in is a HANGAR. The item you hang your jacket or shirt on, in the cupboard, is a HANGER.

This is an aviation-related website so let us try and use the correct terminology. :ok:

[Fargoo]

May I respectfully request you join the other pedants on this thread

http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?t=272560

Fargoo :ok:

Back on topic, a source in the hangar tells me the aircraft is a total loss.

[Longtimer]

Fire at GAMCO brought under quick control
Posted: 19-04-2007 , 13:03 GMT

An aircraft parked at a hangar for routine heavy maintenance at the Gulf Aircraft Maintenance Company (GAMCO) sustained fire damage early this morning. The fire, which broke out at 4.40 a.m., was brought under quick control.

The hangar was safely evacuated and there were no injuries.
All fire detection and protection systems worked as expected, the fire was contained expeditiously by the prompt action of Civil Defence, Airport Fire Department and Gamco staff.

A full investigation is in progress by the UAE General Civil Aviation Authority in coordination with respective authorities to determine the cause of the incident.

[matkat]

I work for GS and can confirm the aircraft is ok as was in the other hanagr.

[Grunf]

Yep, QTR's A300-600 cought fire ignaited in the passenger cabin, I hear from down there.

Six a/c overall in the hangAr incuding GUL's 767-300. Expected are visual inspection for the remaining a/c, for starters.

All in all ,bettter then it could have been.

[blackhat10]

I had a glimpse inside the Gamco hanger and I can confirm the aircraft is totally destroyed only the wings looked undamaged (from a distance) the fuselage is totally burnt out and the tail is indeed scraping the floor.

[barit1]

This sounds remarkably like a PK DC-10 (http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19810203-0&lang=en)that caught fire during cabin cleaning within their KHI hangar around 1980. It too was a total loss, although many parts lived on flying close formation in other a/c.

[ChristiaanJ]

Any news at all on what started it? Cleaning fluid? Electrical short?
Not just curiosity, because hangar fires have happened before.

[Jacamar]

Deja-vu from Istanbul

http://www.airfleets.net/crash/crash_report_Air%20Alfa_TC-ALP.htm

Air alfa A300-B4 caught fire in cabin whilst on ground over night. Was in despatch getting ready to go fly the bird when the fire broke out. Ended up pretty much like the aloha 737.... Convertible

[A300Man]

The news of the fire is very conspicuous by its absence in the local newspapers here in the sandpit. I am not even sure if it appeared in any of the Doha papers at all, but in the UAE, the story was reported by means of a tiny little paragraph hidden in the lesser colums of all three main papers (GN, KT, GT) and, in fact, the piece was identical - word for word - in all three papers.

I would normally consider the destruction of an aircraft beyond repair to be fairly noteworthy as a minimum, but headline news in general, especially when it happens on the doorstep.

Thankfully, there was no loss of life (other than "Victor's") or any injury, which would have (one assumes.....................?????) made it onto the front page.

[rebeccy]

There apparently was 1 painter injured, broken leg. Kingfisher had damaged wing tip, and Mauritius air had damaged engine cowl, these were a result of the fin dropping and heat damage. The incident took 15 minutes from start to finish, there is no damage to the hangar. All Gamco employees rallied this weekend to ensure that the hangar is back in operation. No fatalities occured, which of course is thankful news. It could of been much worse.

[mojocvh]

...with the lack of fire detection inside production aircraft, one of the first things I noticed when I started in toulouse, however the fact that on a good day the sections can be packed with sparkies wiring and heatshrinking does raise some ground for concern.

MoJo

[Longtimer]

20/04/07
SOURCE:Flightglobal.com
Three Airbus jets identified as damaged in Gamco fire
By David Kaminski-Morrow
At least three Airbus aircraft were suffered damage in yesterday’s fire at Middle East overhaul firm Gulf Air Maintenance (Gamco), which started in an Airbus A300 said to belong to Qatar Airways.

Emerging details indicate that the effects of the fire at Gamco’s Abu Dhabi facility were more severe than initially indicated, with jets belonging to Kingfisher Airlines and Air Mauritius confirmed as being affected.

Air Mauritius had an Airbus A319 parked next to the A300. The airline has identified the twin-jet as a four-year old example, owned by the carrier, equipped with CFM International CFM56 engines.

“According to initial information the tail of the aircraft collapsed and parts fell on our aircraft,” says an Air Mauritius spokesman. “We do not know the extent of the damage and therefore cannot advise when the aircraft will be back in service.”

India’s Kingfisher Airlines says that it had an Airbus A320 in the same hangar awaiting a C1-check and installation of in-flight entertainment systems.

A spokesman for the carrier says that the International Aero Engines V2500-powered twin-jet, which is owned by lessor AerCap and is less than two years old, escaped with “little damage” although it was subjected to “falling debris”.

Qatar Airways has not confirmed that it is the operator of the A300 at the heart of the investigation, although there are increasing indications that the jet in question is an A300-600R and that the jet has sustained serious damage.

Gamco general manager Saif Al Mughairy tells flightglobal that, despite the fire, the maintenance operation itself should not be badly affected. He is not prepared to disclose details of the fire damage, beyond confirming that it started in an A300 aircraft, or the specific customers affected.

But he says that the company is otherwise operating “as normal” and that he is “very confident” that main investigation into the incident will be completed within four or five days.

[barit1]

The news of the fire is very conspicuous by its absence in the local newspapers here in the sandpit.

Many things happen in the sandpit that are not reported in the local media, especially when a prominent national or his enterprise is involved. :=

[rebeccy]

It was reported in the Gulf News the day after the fire.

[MikeAlphaTangoTango]

Pictures here http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2007/04/23/213377/pictures-qatar-airways-a300-destroyed-in-gamco-fire-at-abu.html

[Fargoo]

http://www.flightglobal.com/assets/getAsset.aspx?ItemID=17346

[lomapaseo]

My firewall didn't like that link!!

[BahrainLad]

Remember kids...that's what we in the Gulf call "minor damage."
:D

[Yak97]

Had they painted out the tail logo before or after the fire?

[Algy]

Exposing the absolute whoppers issued by the Abu Dhabi authorities. (http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/flight-international/2007/04/gamco.html)

[55yrsSLC_10yearsPPL]

From the pictures I take it that the fire-retardant qualities of the hangar structure are quite good.

I do hope though that the aircraft manufacturers re-run the close-circuit camera recordings of the conflagration until blue in the face.
This is not a fuel fire, it is an inside out fire of obviously highly inflammable fuselage contents - they ought to study just how it developed and give serious thought to improving their product.

[ChristiaanJ]

Had they painted out the tail logo before or after the fire?Judging by Algy's link, they hardly needed to....

[DW11]

I bet Gulf are thrilled that the 763 survived.

[brain fade]

Dw11

Yeah. I bet.:rolleyes:

Reminds me of an ex collleague who was the boss of a Ford dealership.

He received a frantic call one night from his night watchmen telling him there was a fire and some new cars were ablaze. 'Any Granadas on fire?', he asked,
'no' came the reply. 'Well push some in then!'

[Raggyman]

I tell you what, I am supprised that a fire could get that much of a hold in the cabin. I thought the interiors of aircraft were spose to be fire resistant, I guess there are other things like cabling and other things in there to help things along I guess.