Fire/Overheat Det Fault on 777 engine

[frenchypilot]

Hi everyone.

I would like to have your thought about the following:

On an 11h flight on 777, after 6h you got an EICAS "DET FIRE ENG R or L": Engine fire and overheat detection is failed.

Would you consider continuing to destination? Return? Divert?

Thanks.

[AmarokGTI]

Dunno about the 777 but on the type I fly you can MEL the Fire Detection, under certain conditions.

[Highway1]

Not an MEL item on the 777.

[flyboyike]

MEL doesn't apply for an airborne discrepancy. What does the QRH say?

[wiggy]

FWIW Our 777 ECL/QRH for this has no action items, simply the condition statement the OP quotes:

“Engine fire and overheat detection is failed.”

I suspect the OP might have started a thread where having a supply of popcorn might be useful.

[172_driver]

MEL doesn't apply for an airborne discrepancy. What does the QRH say?

I think he/she knows that

But it could affect the subsequent return flight

[BraceBrace]

It's a statistical thing, which we might not like but that's how failure analyses works in aviation...

What is the chance of failure after a failure? Very remote that it will happen for the remainder of the flight. So Boeing will not tell you to "land asap" as it is not required. As a pilot you prefer to stay safe so nobody should oppose the decision to divert and land. Although there is no reason to rush, plenty of time to choose a suitable alternate for your company.

If you would end up getting an engine fire, the fire will eventually destroy the engine which will be visible in other ways. In that case you would consider it a land asap situation as you cannot confirm a possible fire to be extinguished.

It gets even trickier with cargo hold fire detection system failures in flight...

But as mentioned, get out the popcorn and shoot my opinion :-)

[flyboyike]

172_driver

Granted. He wasn't asking about the subsequent flight, though.

[flyboyike]

wiggy

It sounds like it's a "crew awareness only"-type message, not something that would rise to diversionworthiness...

[wiggy]

Well that was boring...........no need for the popcorn so far..

FWIW agree with the likes of BraceBrace and flyboyike.

Not sure I’d be thinking of returning to base 6hrs into an 11 hour sector, even if that was possible. I’d be inclined to tell Company about the message (if I could) but TBH I’d be looking at carrying on to destination.

[frenchypilot]

Right. The situation doesn’t require a land asap. As mentioned above there are no crew actions required, the system brings to your attention you have lost fire/overheat detection on the engine.

Having discussed the scenario with some colleagues it came up continuing would be reasonable, also if Ops agrees and can fix the plane at destination.

We still have engine primary and secondary parameters to monitor a possible malfunction, and possibly liaise with engineering for further info.

It’s a bit of grey area though .

[Pugilistic Animus]

The MEL is only limited to before takeoff. Once airborne it's the captain's decision

[yotty]

I thought it was valid until the a/c moved under it's own power. Even then though it would be worth a look.