Passed your LDP , and you have a engine failure..

[rotorboy]

Ok here is one for you experienced twin guys. A friend and I were talking on Skype last night about this situaiton. A mutal friend was given this on a sim ride.

You are on final, and have passed your LDP. The number one is failing, and has indications of possible fire.

What do you do?
Do you roll the engine back and have the co-joe reach up, pull the fire bottle T handle , and risk pulling the wrong lever, or do you just fly the thing to the ground and get everyone out and not worry about the a/c.

My thoughts would be , since you have already passed your LDP, you have decided you are landing, just land the machine. Why try to complicate the situation.

I ma told this wasnt exaclty what the sim instructor was looking for.

What would you do.

ANy one have experience in a similar situation?


RB:ok:

[Gomer Pylot]

This is another one of those "It depends" situations. Without knowing much more, it's hard to say for sure. If I'm very close to the ground, I may just land it and then start the fire checklist, but there may be other factors involved. 10 feet above the deck isn't the time to be reaching for engine levers, but you have to take everything into account, and make a very quick decision. That's why they pay the PIC the big money. :}

[Flingingwings]

RB,

Twins tend to have substantial fire walls surronding the engines. Fire warnings can be spurious.

Single pilot I'd land, get the aircraft evacuated and then deal with the possible fire. Radio call to ATC whilst flying, but you're so close I wouldn't make things more complicated than they'd need to be.

Twin crew. Reckon I'd do the same.

Had a similar scenario on my S76 initial test in a sim, albeit fire was just before LDP - I landed, then worried about the fire then to.:ok:

[NickLappos]

Fly the helicopter to the ground, touch nothing!
If you are inside LDP, you are 10 seconds or less from touchdown. Fiddling with engine levers, fire bottles and stuff will get your entire aircraft into deeper danger, through the diverted attention and potential to mishandle the task. Do that stuff on the ground after landing.

Flingingwings is absolutely right, a Part 29 twin can stand a raging engine fire for 15 minutes without any additional damage (not that I would wait 15 minutes, folks!) since its firewalls are designed to contain the fire, and they are isolated from the structure to allow safe operation with the fire.

[EN48]

It has been drummed into me forever that the acft is dispensible, the pax and crew are not. If only 10 sec from the ground, land, evacuate, then worry about the acft.

[kwachon]

Get on the ground first then fix the problem. :E

[S76Heavy]

I ma told this wasnt exaclty what the sim instructor was looking for.

This puzzles me and it's not just the spelling..

WHO told you that and WHY?

Like some brighter minds before me have said, the a/c will survive the 10 seconds of possible engine fire, but you may not survive the subsequent accident when you try to identify the exact nature of the problem and shut down an engine at a time when you should focus all your attention on performing a safe landing.
Perhaps do the Mayday call on ATC frequency, but nothing else.

Personally I'd land the beast, shut down both (I fly twins) engines and evacuate. A/C is insured, and on the ground it becomes Somebody Else's Problem after we get out..

[Matthew Parsons]

I'm surprised this generates discussion. Aren't the actions to be taken upon engine failure after LDP written down?

This is the simple case. Just prior to LDP is a much more interesting discussion. Very much depends on the nature of the emergency, although in most cases its easy to decide whether you want to keep flying ot not. If you decide to land then whether or not you secure the engine is the tough call.

Matthew.

[flyer43]

On two pilot operations, at LDP the handling pilot makes a statement to the non-handling pilot which confirms that he is either going to land or go around. That way both pilots know exactly what is intended in terms of where the helicopter is going, regardless of engine failure or fire etc.
Maybe the Sim instructor was looking to see whether your friend might thing about what could happen if his helicopter bursts into flames on the helideck, thus exposing even more people to the danger.. As the helicopter is already past LDP I wouldn't even go there - Land as planned.

After LDP, as Nick and others have pointed out, you only have a matter of a few seconds to react. Telling the NHP to pull back No1 throttle requires that the HP checks that the correct lever has been selected before it is pulled back, which means that he would have to take his eyes off the approach at a critical moment and risk screwing up the approach.

If the NHP pulls back the wrong engine - OOps, splat.

Leave the engines where they are and concentrate on landing as soon as possible - no loitering in the hover for a gentle touch down!
As soon as you touch down and start lowering the lever you can then move your attention to ensuring the correct engine is shut down ASAP and the Fire Bottle is fired.

One thing to consider before shutting down both engines is - what is the windspeed and is it turbulent - ie is it safe to stop rotors on the deck at this stage?
The most important thing in any case is to evacuate the pax as soon as you can. Then you can take whatever action you next decide on without the problem of possibly hurting passengers in the process.

Would be interested to hear what the Sim Instructor really expected to hear on this one.

[Gomer Pylot]

It's also worth remembering that a sim instructor is just that. He's there to teach you the sim, and I don't spend a lot of time worrying about what (s)he thinks of my flying or decision-making. That's for the check pilot to check.

[toolguy]

Like most of these situations, it is hard to say, but fly first, guess later. So I would continue to land, while looking for more info. I don't think that a fire warning alone warrants pulling a fire handle. I would want secondary indications, like smoke, stink, engine getting hot. In flight, a fire warning would warrant some S turns to look for trailing smoke. Pulling handles close to the ground is usually a bad thing. :uhoh:

[ShyTorque]

Nick can possibly recall the advice latterly given in the Blackhawk RFM about engine malfunctions and mis-identifying of affected engines. It says that ECLs should not be fully retarded in less than five seconds.... in that time, from LDP you would be almost on the ground.

I certainly wouldn't want ECLs moved until on the ground, the only possible exception is an engine runaway up where the Nr goes outside the upper limits; unlikely to happen (but it has).

An engine run-down / failure? Nah! After LDP you have committed to land anyway, so why change anything and get distracted from a safe landing?

[tottigol]

This may be an interesting thread.
Now the same scenario, but you are past the the LDP and landing on an offshore drilling rig.....in the Gulf of Mexico.

[Nigel Osborn]

Without being a smart a**e, I hope, the answer is simple. If you have passed LDP & the engine fails, by definition you must land or ditch. This of course assumes you have correctly identified your LDP as I've flown with plenty of pilots who have called LDP far too early & on check flights I've pulled an engine & flown away to demonstrate the point.
Therefore, as Nick & others have said, you complete the landing/ditching & then sort out the fire, etc. If that close to a rig, you are stuck with making a single engine landing, even if the collective is under your arm pit. This will depend on the deck shape & if you have time to avoid it. So far I've had to land on a deck twice without problems but with some luck as in both cases it was windy & only a light load on board. But if all pre briefed, it just happens.

[rotorque]

We were not allowed to land on the platform with any form of fire or indication thereof..... An actual fire problem after LDP meant a ditching was the only option, either that or feel the wrath of 26 Nationals and a pissed off pommy rig boss with the full backing of Textron........

We did HUET twice a year :}

(they seemed quite content to let 2 x 650 degree engine exhausts land as normal though.... don't figure :rolleyes: )

[Non-PC Plod]

Feeling very wary of sticking my head above the parapet here, as a fairly new sim instructor, but I go 100% with what everyone else on this thread seems to be saying. The LDP is the last point at which you can guarantee a baulked landing. Therefore, any engine failure after this point requires you to land.
The fire is something which can wait the few seconds till you are safely down. One exercise that we sometimes use in the sim is to give an engine fire fairly close to an airfield. The engine is safely shut down, but on finals to land, the other engine fire warning illuminates. You may be surprised at how many people rush to shut down the second engine and crash in a heap, instead of continuing to fly the approach to land with the working engine that may or may not be on fire!
The most important lesson I try to get across in emergency handling is - if you are not falling out of the sky, take your time in diagnosis and remedial actions! Time and again, we see perfectly flyable (simulated) aircraft crashing, because the pilot is in a rush to do something, and he/she moves switches and levers that should not have moved.

[ShyTorque]

The most important lesson I try to get across in emergency handling is - if you are not falling out of the sky, take your time in diagnosis and remedial actions! Time and again, we see perfectly flyable (simulated) aircraft crashing, because the pilot is in a rush to do something, and he/she moves switches and levers that should not have moved.

Totally agree. In the Puma sim I once gave a pilot, who thought quite a lot of his own abilities, a spurious engine fire warning whilst he was downwind in the circuit. In his haste to deal with the problem, he immediately shut down the engine without checking for further signs of fire and even worse, allowed the aircraft to descend until he crashed into the ground on base leg! A classic case of not flying the aircraft.

He looked up, totally shocked and asked me what I had done to make it crash! He only believed me when I used the "playback" facility and allowed him to sit and watch himself crash.

Another pilot, on his third tour, no less, misidentified the faulty engine on a number of occasions. I have also seen pilots, given a single engine failure, fool themselves into believing they had a double engine failure because they very rapidly "dumped" the lever and put the aircraft into autorotation. I have also seen pilots say "number 1" when they meant to say "number 2" etc.

After LDP, if you can safely put the aircraft on the ground, you have just about solved the problem.....

As an RAF QHI once said to me, very early on in my flying career: The "land on and leg it" policy seldom fails.

I tend to agree with him, at least in peace time.

[Aser]

We were not allowed to land on the platform with any form of fire or indication thereof..... An actual fire problem after LDP meant a ditching was the only option

rotorque, are you joking????? :eek:
Is that normal with others apart from Textron?

[albatross]

Who, exactly, forbids a landing on the Helideck?

Given the fatality figures per ditching I would be inclined to land on the deck and argue the point later.

Handle the problem on the deck vs attempt a go around after LDP with a potential ditching and evacuation of a flaming helicopter in the water. No big choice there.

Fire burns and water is cold, wet and you can not breathe it.


If the fire can not be contained with the 2 fire bottles in the aircraft and all that foam they have on the helideck they can sweep the whole mess off the rig with the crane - but myself and the crew and pax would be safe aboard the rig - I would even help push the flaming beast overboard.

The priority is to save life.

I see the rig boss's desire to protect his platfom from all danger but there is a limit when to do it he puts the pax and crew in the helicopter at grave risk.

Just my 2 cents.

[NickLappos]

So after you land on the deck (illegally?) and put out the fire, what are they going to do, throw you and your pax in the water? That is the only thing that would make it better to avoid the deck!

I don't care who they are and what they say about how I have no access to their safe landing area when I have an emergency - as PIC, my pax deserve that deck and if there is no Anti-Aircraft site on the rig, that is where they are going!

[HeliComparator]

In case it needs reinforcing, I fully agree with Nick et al.

The details are a bit faded now so sorry if its inaccurate, but BHL had a training accident on SA330J in Abz around 1980. They got a fire warning late on the approach, pulled the wrong engine back, engine on fire failed, hit the ground hard, undercarriage punctured the sponson fuel tanks, big fire very rapidly, both dead.

There is a grey area depending on how far away the ground is when you have the problem. LDP or afterwards there is no contest - get it on the ground first!

Before LDP, use your judgement but be very careful to identify the correct engine. It always amuses me when: we are training in the visual circuit, simulate an engine fire, pilot calmly runs through the fire drill whilst maintaining straight and level flight even though there is a runway very close and plenty of field options. I wonder if they would do that for real, or whether they would want to get it on the ground and start running asap!

HC

[Sven Sixtoo]

Fire in the Air drill requires a bit of thought and has horrible consequences if you get it wrong.

Fire on the Ground drill consists in stopping the rotating bits, turning off everything in sight and running away bravely. The exact order is unlikely to affect the outcome!

Thus, the preferred option for fire in the air is to turn it into fire on the ground, then deal with it.

I have, once, in the Sim, had that horrible feeling that goes with shutting down the wrong engine at 200 ft. It lasts just long enough to reach the thought "we're gonna die" before it all goes quiet. I really wouldn't recommend fiddling with fire handles, ECLs or the fuel panel in preference to landing.

Sven

[soggyboxers]

As far as landing goes I have always briefed that in the event of an engine fire below 500 feet we'll sort it out once on the ground. It's much less likely that you'll end up making a fatal mistake that way.

A number of people have talked of landing after LDP on a rig, which is really not a term one should use as it normally refers to Performance Class One Operations and nearly all helicopters that I know of are operated Class 2 offshore. In my company we use the term 'committed' to landing on an offshore deck, this being the point at which a go around is no longer possible and one is committed to landing on the deck. At that point ditching is not an option. If there is much of a sea running it is anyway likely that the helicopter will either overturn or sink, which is a far more dangerous option than facing the wrath of an irate installation manager.

One always has to be careful of fires as I learnt many years ago when operating a Bell 212 offshore in Egypt. I had a full load of 13 in the back, it was around 34 degrees C and just after rotation at about 2 or 3 knots when taking off from the deck of a drill ship (about 60 feet ASL) the No 1 engine started running down (accompanied by that horrid decrease in Nr). Just at that time the No 1 T-handle illuminated, so we obviously had something nasty going on behind :}. The T-handle was pulled and engine shut down at which point we had a No 2 engine 'Chip' warning. Speed was now close to 20 knots and I'd decided to fly away when the copilot manually inflated the floats :eek:. The No 1 engine fire warning re-illuminated, but luckily after firing the second bottle it extinguished and stayed out. With the extra drag from the floats we managed a staggering 70 knots resulting in a 1 hour flight back to land. The fire had actually been caused by a failure of the securing nut on the locking plate of the engine oil filler cap allowing the cap to come off and oil to flow back over the outside of the combustion chamber. There was quite a lot of fire damage in terms of paint being burnt off. This had all happened in a matter of seconds and has always brought home to me just how rapidly things can develop if you're ever unlucky enough to have a real engine fire.

[paco]

Nick said:

I don't care who they are and what they say about how I have no access to their safe landing area when I have an emergency - as PIC, my pax deserve that deck and if there is no Anti-Aircraft site on the rig, that is where they are going!

Absolutely 100% agree! Especially during Ramadan!

Phil

[Kangia]

Wondering what folks would do on a similar scenario.

On finals to a rig in bad weather at 200 feet over the water, wind 40kts+. Fuel allows only one approach and the diversion is an hour or so away. With 1nm to 2nm to run you begin to get visual with the rig (in and out of cloud at 200ft.) and you then have an engine fire.

Do you, continue and land on the rig in the same configuration, hoping the fire does not get really hot or that's it's a false indication.Deal with the fire trying to maintain visual at 200 feet with the intention of landing on the rig single engine or go-around deal with the fire in the climb or at a better altitude and head to your diversion.

It's a long shot but as we've heard already on the thread things like this can happen.

Kangia.

[Sven Sixtoo]

The first thing you don't want to do in that situation is go IMC till the emergency is absolutely under control. If the fire doesn't go out, I don't know what your orders say, but mine say ditch. Single engine IMC with a fire is not where I'd want to start from to get on the water.

Whether to go for the platform straight off or shut down first would, I think, be one of those "It depends" calls. However, a mile out is probably over a minute to wheels on deck - thats a long time with an engine bay burning merrily. I think I'd want to be a lot closer than that - like very short finals - before continuing twin-engine.

Sven

[NickLappos]

sven is absolutely right - get under the goo and stay there. Go to the rig and land. Have your CP identify and fight the fire, you confirm all steps prior to committing to anything. Shutdown a running engine only as a last resort - the fire won't go out, and smoke and heat assure you it is a fire.

If the fire goes out, take your time, land on the rig, or if you can't because your performance won't let you (wrong combination of wind and deck angle) get the rig boat ready and ditch next to it.

Even if the fire goes out, don't fly an extra 50 miles IFR with a burnt helo and one engine, and don't fly 50 miles across the water under the clouds on one engine.

[Kangia]

That makes good sence but would you ditch with one good engine if the fire was out. I know we can't be sure that the machine has not been damaged in the fire but even an engine failure without a fire might have that potential. Looking out the window at the sea state some days I'm not sure everybody would get out of the machine in one piece.

Bloody scary thought but would anything be done differently if it were night?



Great thread by the way.

[heliski22]

I did hear a story recently about an incident which began with an engine fire in the North Sea some years ago, S76, I believe, where, having gotten to the point on the checklist where it said "Diitch", the Captain elected to carry on with a damaged but still functioning aircraft, albeit in breach of SOPs and landed a little later on the nearest rig.

Can't remember the exact details, might jog somebody's memory though?

[flyer43]

HeliComparator
Just a comment on the accident you were referring to. Maybe my memory is jaded also (no comment please!) but I think that the accident occured during climb out on a training flight. The instructor failed an engine and the other took fire at about the same time. Attempts to get the "failed" engine up probably distracted from making a succesful, but hard landing and the rest was as you wrote. Terribly sad whatever the real events were.

F43

[ShyTorque]

HeliComparator and Flyer43,

That terrible training accident was the final thing that made the RAF change the way it carried out its own OEI training.

We began to use simulators for much of the stuff we had previously done "live". Although an unpopular move in the eyes of some pilots, it led to a much better trained workforce.

Simulators also allowed us to think more about tail rotor control malfunctions, rather than "simple" tail rotor drive failures and there is at least one contributor here who possibly owes his life to that training. Perhaps he will post something about his experience in that respect.

[flyer43]

ShyTorque

You are absolutely right about the improvements in training that resulted from the tragedy. But isn't it always so sad that we have to wait for a tragedy, even these days, before somebody will see sense and improve the way in which some are expected to operate?!
Sim training is a must these days, for exactly the reasons you stated, but there are still those operators (and contracting companies) who find all sorts of excuses not to implement it!!

[HeliComparator]

F43 - I think its my memory that is jaded. I wasn't in the company at the time and I suspect your version is the correct one, though of course the message that its a very bad idea to be flying on the engine that is on fire, with the other one at idle/shut down, is unchanged.

One thing which can influence a decision (though perhaps its should not?) is the occurance rate of false fire warnings. The 332L uses bimetallic switches as fire detectors - the contacts open to indicate a fire so any bad connection, dirt on the contacts etc can trigger a false warning. After many years of complaining they improved the detectors somewhat by encapsulating them in thin metal to keep dirt out and they are now much better, but still false warnings far outnumber real ones.

In a fairly bold move, Bristow departed from the flight manual emergency procedure for the 332L -the RFM says to pull the red fuel shut off lever, at which point of course that engine stops. Bristow EOP says to use the SSL (fuel control lever) to bring the engine to idle, then check for signs of fire. This gives further opportunity to spot that the wrong engine has been identified, before moving the SSL to shutoff, checking for signs of fire again and then pulling the red shutoff lever (after that the fire drill is the same as the RFM). It also gives the opportunity to detect that the warning is caused by a hot gas leak rather than a fire. We continued this concept on the 332L2 and now the 225.

Even though the false warning rate may be high, of course if a warning occurs during an engine failure (as the original poster was proposing) you can be pretty sure its genuine! Otherwise, if there are no other indications / smells etc should one shut down an engine and fire the bottle just because a simplex system tells you its on fire? I would suggest that you should, but only if the rest of the flight can be sucessfully continued on 1 engine.

HC

[rotorque]

Albatross, Nick, all of the above,

Hey, I didn't write the rules.... Although I should probably admit to not making a big deal about them either.

When we did the orientation day on the rig in question it was pretty clear that the rig boss did not want us landing on his deck with an uncontrolled fire...period. The platform was a transfer rig used for moving light crude and gas to carriers, at the time it made absolute sense not to land, I mean, it was only myself, the co-plt a few perishables or a sling load. Our operations were in the early stages of development and SOP's were pretty flexible by todays standards. Funnily enough, it made more sense to go down in flames and blame it on mechanical failure than to take out a rig full of people and be blamed for making a bad call.

It would be nice to say I stood my ground and said "my pax deserve that deck" but really all I cared about was getting the job done, pleasing the rig boss, my boss and keeping the contract.....and be damned if a 1% chance of getting a fire after LDP was going to stop me... :cool:

Now for the disclamer.... I am not sure if my will power is that strong to put a machine in the drink if I think I could land it safely on a deck... nor do I think I would of had enough time to contemplate it as our LDP was basically over the pad. If I was honestly faced with the scenario mentioned above, I really don't know what decision I would have made at the time.... probably land, self preservation has a strange way of making decisions for you.

Last thing I should mention is that the company was Chevron, not Textron... bit of finger trouble on that one, and an infamous big man Ricky was in charge of rule making at the time.......Some people may remember him :rolleyes:

[Nigel Osborn]

Some people have good memories! The instructor pilot in question was a good friend of mine & had been an ex RN QHI since about 1966. The puma was indeed on climb out when the incident happened. I was told that it was highly likely that the smoke had made them pass out or at least made it impossible for them to take corrective action plus they landed hard on a cross slope which probably caused the roll over.

As said numerous times after LDP or CDP, land quickly.

[AndyJB32]

The way we get taught, after you pass through LDP there is no choice - you must land. This is due to not having the performance after LDP to carry out a single engine go-around without coming below 35ft above the ground (class 1 go-around requirements). Similarly with the TDP on a class 1 departure, if anything happens before TDP we have no choice, and must reject. We have some discrepancy wether to continue or reject after TDP, but the assumption unless otherwise briefed would be that you would continue. If we're departing class 2 then there is no specific TDP, only a stated VToss. The pilot just makes a judgement call when he thinks on that particular day he would continue if anything went wrong. With class 1 the performance is guaranteed below 500 feet, class 2 isn't.

The more interesting scenario would be approaching a rig before passing the commited point (no LDP as not flying class 1 off-shore). Would you land single engine on a rig, with no gaurantee of landing performance, or would you go-around and fly back into the air with an engine on fire?

Interesting to think about these cases, and hopefully that's all any of us will ever do!:ok:

[Snarlie]

With regard to the Puma accident in Aberdeen, there were additional behind the scenes discussions, as one might expect, at the time. There was a suggestion that the accident was as a result of mishandling of the SSL`s following the previous exercise involving a running landing. Inputs from various agencies around at the time of the accident suggest that additional pressures were being applied, namely time constraints, instructor relatively new to the type, first officer under training in an unfamiliar crew seat, ie right instread of left. The immediate upshot was the requirement to carry a safety pilot on the jump seat whose sole responsibility was to guard the SSL`s.

The early 332L`s were prone to spurious fire warnings with one engine at idle and one at max contingency ie OEI training. This happened to me on my 1179 check at Marignane downwind at night. The Bristow training captain was conducting the test from the jump seat with a French instructor as safety pilot in the left hand seat. On departure, one engine was failed beyond CDP and the take off continued. After completing touch drills I turned downwind in the circuit at which point the fire warning illuminated on the good engine. The French pilot who had been gazing out of the window immediately reached up and stopcocked the good engine. It was only the timely intervention of the Brit training captain who managed to advance the `failed` engine swiftly enough to prevent us joining the other members of my course who were at a pizza restaurant in the village of Marignane that evening. I don`t speak French but luckily the training captain did and judging by the volume today`s CRM guidelines were not followed!

[Bootneck]

Re. the Puma accident at Aberdeen. The instructor had been flying them in excess of 3 years to my knowledge, and been an instructor for most of his career. The 'good' engine had what was then described as a thermal runaway during a rejected take-off, which meant there was nil or limited power available from it, with no opportunity to advance the retarded throttle.
The company policy was to top up the sponson tanks, unfortunately the crew suffered the consequences of those tanks splitting. The fuel policy was immediately changed.
Within days we were required to provide a third pilot, a Capt, to sit in the jump seat and operate the SSLs in the event of a catastrophic failure. It was to be the training Capt who would call for the SSL to be advanced, how long the third pilot would wait to act is open to conjecture. Within a week of the accident I had to sit in as safety pilot for a NVMCBC, and hated every second. The safety of the third pilot was compromised by being in a jump seat with only a lap strap.


Re. Engine fire post LDP, put it on the ground, then have a good look before letting your flailing hands start work. ;)

[verticalhold]

I was always taught "No emergency actions below 500ft unless its a double engine failure or we are on fire" on take off and "no emergency actions at all unless its a double engine failure below 1000ft on the approach". the thinking being that an accurately flown approach will get you in, and then you can sort out the mess on the ground.

A set of hands flashing around the cockpit are potentially lethal if the handling pilot is not able to give 100% to monitoring them at an already high workload and stress moment.

I had one inexperienced lad shut down the wrong engine on me in the sim through excitement and watched my boss (16,000 hours) b***er up a perfectly good ILS on an IRR when doing touch drills on a single pilot aircraft below 500 ft just as everything gets really tight.

We have a procedure here that no drills are to be carried out on approach at all, and that no emergency other than a double engine failure needs a reaction until the pilot is absolutely sure that the aircraft is at a safe height and on a safe heading and that he is aware of the surrounding terrain.

VH