LAX fire?

[crwkunt roll]

Anything at all? Heard United landed at LAX due some sort of airborne fire.

[Continental_Pilot]

I heard about this on my way to DEN - made the local press;

Passengers Describe Scary Ordeal As Plane Makes Emergency Landing At LAX « CBS Los Angeles (http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2014/05/10/plane-with-possible-mechanical-issue-lands-safely-at-lax/)

Why did the Captain opt to release PAX oxygen when there was a little smoke in the cabin??

[BRE]

Have a look here:
Incident: United B752 over Pacific on May 10th 2014, smoke in cockpit and cabin (http://avherald.com/h?article=4742d5eb&opt=0)

[u3k bus driver]

LOS ANGELES >> A United Airlines flight has arrived safely back at Los Angeles International Airport after smoke was reported in the cockpit and cabin during a flight to Hawaii.

Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Ian Gregor says United flight 1296 landed without incident at 11:38 a.m. Saturday, about three hours after it took off.

United spokesman Charles Hobart says nobody was hurt.

The Boeing 757 was headed for Kona International Airport with about 150 people on board when the smoke was reported by crew members.

Fire Department engines and ambulances sent to the airport as a precaution were released after the safe landing.

[Aluminium shuffler]

I wonder if the hydraulics problem was hydraulic fluid backing up the reservoir pressurising lines into the pneumatic manifold, and then getting into the packs? If so, that haze would have organophosphates in it, which is not an insignificant issue. Regardless, see smoke, land ASAP. Seems like a good decision.

I'm not sure about the pax oxygen being used, though, if the reports are true. If you have a potential cabin fire, introducing more oxygen is a bad idea. Even if you know it's fumes from a non-fire source, then those masks aren't going to help as they don't keep the fumes out, they just add extra oxygen to the cabin air being breathed in. Doing the smoke/fumes removal checklist would have isolated either/both packs as the source if it was from there and ventilated the cabin. The oxygen would only have been necessary if the packs had both been shut down and the outflow valve opened above FL100...

[glendalegoon]

dear aluminium shuffler

I raise the same concerns that you do in your post.


passenger oxygen systems are only made to allow an emergency descent to safe breathing altitudes and not to protect from fume and use in a fire situation can make things worse.

I too wonder if they made an emergency descent to 10,000'. Also, passenger oxygen systems (depending on type) may only last a few minutes (time to descent) and not for hours of protection against fumes.

Also, some toxins enter the body through the eyes , with no protection from a loosely fitting cup style oxygen mask.


FOR those reading about landing on an island, there is a US Navy airstrip (10,000' long) on San Nicholas island off the coast. Mind you, not much on the island, but there is a runway out there.


Wondering if pilot considered ditching?

I've certainly considered the concept of ditching if there was an uncontrollable fire in the cabin and you are out of range(time) of a land airport.

[Aluminium shuffler]

The pax oxy lasts about 12mins on a 737, and I'd assume they use similar generators on other AC as a standard part, so would expect a similar duration on just about any airliner. That's enough for an emergency descent. If you get the aircraft down to FL100, you can then fly depressurised with your only time limit being fuel endurance, so a diversion might not even be necessary if the air contamination is removed via the fumes removal checklist. I'd not want to go too long without getting the pax and cc off for medical checks, but once ventilated, the situation becomes one of urgency rather than emergency. It'd certainly be prudent to get medical assistance on arrival, and if there was any suspicion of flt deck contamination, to have a full emergency stand-to at the chosen airport. I've had exactly this, once, though the flt deck was fine.

[Continental_Pilot]

Begs the question if the Pilot was actually thinking clearly in this situation. Releasing PAX oxygen as well as having them put on their life-jackets certainly would have scared the hell out of them, even as a precaution.

[Aluminium shuffler]

Quite, Continental. It makes me wonder if perhaps the pilots were mildly incapacitated too?

[golfyankeesierra]

Smoke in a Boeing often is a recirc fan..

And about oxygen, totally useless in a smoke environment AND you have to go down (if you aren't doing it already due to the smoke) otherwise you have no oxy left in case of a decompression

[glendalegoon]

while I do not know the particulars of this airplane, it is possible that the oxygen system is gaseous (big giant cylinders and plumbing) rather than oxygen generators.

perhaps someone out there in internet land knows for sure about this PARTICULAR plane.

and an excellent point golfyankeesierra about once using the oxygen, you have to go down to lower altitudes just in case.

wondering too about exact location of turnback and if Santa Barbara might have been a better choice for emergency landing (shortish but ok runway), former Point Magu NAS etc if they were actually thinking about San Nicholas Island NAVY OLF.

[Aluminium shuffler]

Crew oxygen is gaseous - a fixed bottle to fixed masks in the flt deck and portable bottles for crew so they can go about their duties in the cabin. Pax oxygen is invariably by oxygen generators and those basic unsealed masks on airliners as pressurised gaseous oxygen would be far to heavy and maintenance intensive. I suspect it'd also be too dangerous - a leak from a single portable oxy bottle can be dealt with simply by removing it from the vicinity of any fire, but a leak in a system that caters for the entire aircraft would not have that flexibility, and would also render oxygen unavailable for the entire passenger compliment rather than just a seat row, as would happen for an oxygen generator failure.

[Spooky 2]

Boeing offers different pax O2 sytems for various models. Generally speaking there is either a 12 minute of 20 minute canister. Those times may not be exact so don't bet the farm on the numbers. The 787 has a gaseous system for pax. I think the 777 offers either gaseous or canster. The crew O2 system is available in various sizes depending on operator needs.

[Aluminium shuffler]

I learned something new there - I didn't know about the 787 being the exception to the rule, and I'm frankly surprised given the extensive efforts at weight saving in its design. I can't say I'm keen on the idea of pressurised oxygen lines running around the cabin - that's just asking for trouble in a fire, and given the aircraft's history (fingers crossed mostly sorted now - it's been quiet for a while now). Presumably, the lines are empty until the system is activated, opening the valve on the top of the bottle(s) and is able to be isolated by the crew in the event of fire?

[Una Due Tfc]

Many 747s have the gaseous system fitted also. That QF one had a pax bottle explode a few years back IIRC, it's up to the customer as to which system they want fitted

[Pom Pax]

The reasoning behind QF having a gaseous system on their 747s was I understood to be because the routeing they were using to Europe over flew the Tibetan Plateau. So should a decompression occur they might have needed an extended time on oxygen before they could descent below 10,000ft.

[glendalegoon]

I always ask about particular planes. You never know. AS an aside, SOME 767's can dump fuel, others can't.

So, its better to ask about oxygen, or dumping or whatever.


And, given a choice, I would much prefer gaseous oxygen to oxygen generators.

[Spooky 2]

Generally speaking the 767 ER's have the fuel jettison system installed as obviously they have that additional fuel for the mission requirement. Some, but not all -200ER have jettison. The earlier lighter weight series ER's did not.

Passenger oxygen is a distributed gaseous system with bottles installed in the PSUs, lavatories, crew rests, and
attendant stations. Electronically controlled pulses of oxygen are delivered to the passenger masks from small, sealed
oxygen cylinders. Selections are provided for a small, medium, or large capacity system. Masks deploy
either manually or automatically when the cabin altitude reaches 14,500 feet (4,420 meters) or 1,500 feet (457 meters)
above takeoff or landing altitude, whichever is greater.

[DC10Forever]

The flight was making an emergency approach to 7L at LAX and then decided to head for KNSI San Nicolas instead. Later they changed their minds and headed back to LAX for a 7L arrival and taxied to the gate normally after stopping on the runway for an ARFF inspection. A 757 landing at KNSI would have turned the heads of a few seals.

[Aluminium shuffler]

Thanks, Spooky, I had no idea that this option was available. Live and learn...