Plane's engine on fire; Fire trucks foam wrong jet

[peekay4]

???
https://s3.amazonaws.com/org.barkah.misc/fire_fuzhou.jpg
via Twitter (https://twitter.com/xhnews/status/674874691203416064)

Lena Ge, WCARN.com | Dec. 10, 2015

A Fuzhou Airlines (FU) Boeing 737-800 aircraft (Registration B-1906) had to be grounded after airport firemen sprayed it with foam by mistake.

The plane performing FU6577 bound for Jinan was ready for takeoff at Fuzhou Changle International Airport (FOC) when the crew detected smoke and fire on a neighboring Air China (CA) plane and contacted the tower. ...

Eight fire trucks arrived at the scene in 2 minutes, but mistakenly sprayed the Fuzhou Airlines plane with foam. A few minutes later, the firefighters found the mistake and put the fire on Air China 738 using foam.
More from: wcarn.com (http://www.wcarn.com/news/49/49508.html)

[AndoniP]

Did anyone else read this and do a sad trombone voice in their heads? :E

[wanabee777]

A real life "Chinese fire drill".

[PersonFromPorlock]

Did anyone else read this and do a sad trombone voice in their heads? :EWhat I heard in my head was "Your other left, sir!"

[Cubs2jets]

And here I thought the original poster mis-spelled in the title and the fire trucks foamed the WONG jet!

C2j

[ShyTorque]

Reminded me of the incident some years ago where someone told someone in a certain red 9 ship aerobatic team that his jet was on fire but got the formation number wrong. In the slight confusion, four ejection seats went bang instead of two......

[pattern_is_full]

I kinda see how this got started...

Tower calls fire services and tells them "Fuzhou 737 reports engine fire at runway XX..." and neglects to mention that the fire is on a different plane - or mentions it, but that detail gets lost in the hubbub.

But you wonder how the reponders missed seeing the smoke/flames/whatever that were visible to the FU6577 crew, once they arrived.

[Tarq57]

Rather than analyzing the kerfuffle about who foamed whom and why, I'm more interested in what set that 787 smoking.

[sb_sfo]

Seems like it was a 737-800

[shuoxing]

According to the investigation reported by local Chinese News:

The engines on the 738 of FU are CFM56-7B24E. The high pressure foam went into the engine core when the engine was running. Due to thermal shock, some blades were deformed, the oil pipes and electronic components might have also been affected. Both engines were expected to be written off.

Also, despite of the smoke from the engine on the CA airplane, foam was not actually needed.

[No Fly Zone]

While it is not difficult to understand how/why this :mad: occurred, it not have happened. Is there not at least some SOP for fire and rescue crews to confirm their intended target before charging ahead with the assault? In this case, the airplane assaulted in error was not even the same type or carrier reported. OMG!
One would also like to believe that the Fire and Rescue crews use some version of thermal scanning before their attack. In the far more common instance of an emergency/precautionary landing do to heat/smoke/fire alarms from the hold, the F&R crews are frequently directed to SCAN but Do Not Open until an evacuation, if ordered by commander, is completed. Darn good reasons for that order, even when>~98+% pf such alarms turn out to be a faulty sensor. A firefighting assault on the WRONG airplane, w/o direct contact with the flight crew or some major evidence of significant fire, is beyond belief. Where was this again? Do F&R staff speak the language of the air? Did the tower translate? If those twits did conduct a thermal scan, were they reading the operational jet's EGT? I do not :mad: believe this, yet I do!
Great to know that flying is so :mad:safe, but beyond North Amerika, Europe, Japan and at least some of Russia, four rubber wheels on pavement may be a better choice.:eek:

[peekay4]

Both engines were expected to be written off.
Ouch... expensive mistake!

[lomapaseo]

The engines on the 738 of FU are CFM56-7B24E. The high pressure foam went into the engine core when the engine was running. Due to thermal shock, some blades were deformed, the oil pipes and electronic components might have also been affected. Both engines were expected to be written off.

Good luck in getting somebody to pay for this claim.

How many other cases where engines with no damage have been written off after being hosed?

[visibility3miles]

What I heard in my head was the pilot screaming at the fire crew to stop foaming his plane.


So much for an on-time departure. :ouch:

[david1300]

... One would also like to believe that the Fire and Rescue crews use some version of thermal scanning before their attack...

What do you think the thermal can of a running engine would reveal? My guess is extreme heat :p I can't see that this would differ much, if at all, from the scan signature of a smoking/on fire engine ;)

[EW73]

This brings to mind that QF32 A380 that returned to Singapore with one engine shut down.
When they tried to shut down the other engines, one (#1 I think!), would not shut down and continued to run dispite all attempts.
Finally, the fire services 'drowned' this idling engine with a massive water assault down the intake,
my question is, how easy/quickly did it shut down, and what damage was done to the engine in the process?

[peekay4]

Commercial jet engines -- by design -- can ingest massive amounts of water and still function normally.

The QF32 firefighters tried to stop engine #1 by flooding it with water but were unsuccessful. They then switched to foam, and the engine stopped after that rather quickly.

Once an engine is contaminated with foam, it has to be totally stripped down and completely overhauled.

[sb_sfo]

I recall hearing that 2 of the donks on the A340 attacking the blast fence at Toulouse ran for hours despite all the water poured in them.

[Bus Junkie]

It will be the FU captain who will be blamed for creating confusion by reporting.
:ugh:

[9 lives]

Imagine the criticism to be heaped upon the fire crews had they paused and watched engines to make a determination different from what they understood from the fire call, and the airplane became a pile of ash full of victims in the mean time.

Or... think about the firefighters chat groups where they might make posts about really bad landings they witness....

Cut them a little slack, as you would like them to do for you....

[peekay4]

Imagine the criticism to be heaped upon the fire crews had they paused and watched engines to make a determination different from what they understood from the fire call, and the airplane became a pile of ash full of victims in the mean time.

Or... think about the firefighters chat groups where they might make posts about really bad landings they witness....

Cut them a little slack, as you would like them to do for you....

No slack here... as the firefighters were foaming the wrong jet -- contrary to all procedures -- another jet was actually on fire. THAT jet could have "became a pile of ash full of victims in the mean time".