Engine fire during approach 737

[fiducioso]

Hello everyone I’m curious about it!
airplane established on ils... if an engine fire o severe damage occurs..should pilots follow memeory items or they should land first! And then do everything?
thanks

[Flying Wild]

Hello everyone I’m curious about it!
airplane established on ils... if an engine fire o severe damage occurs..should pilots follow memeory items or they should land first! And then do everything?
thanks

if you’re already established on approach and in landing config with sufficient thrust from the remaining engine to continue, then continue and do as much as you can from the checklist. If you do not have sufficient thrust, consider retracting flaps to F15 and continue, again do as many of the checks as possible including Flap Inhibit. Continue with checklist once on the ground.

[FlyingStone]

Common sense?

Memory items, if time permits. If you're too close to the ground, land the aircraft and sort it out later.

[lomapaseo]

Engine fires and severe damage take significant times to render an aircraft unflyable. Your landing decisions are much more time dependant, so prioritize accordingly

[Capt Pit Bull]

If only there were two pilots on board.... !

[flyfan]

Well, the Fire memory items don't really take a long time to accomplish, so if you've got some time left, do them. If you're at...let's say 200ft...land the plane and don't worry about Memory items until your stopped and the parking brake is set.
To conclude: Common sense.

[meleagertoo]

To avoid...reflex call of "Go Around!"
Seen it far too often!

[Av8rMarc]

Engine fires and severe damage take significant times to render an aircraft unflyable. Your landing decisions are much more time dependant, so prioritize accordingly

Surprising this mindset is still around. Swissair? Valujet? Land, Man. Right now. You've already taken care of "landing decisions" - OP says he is on approach. Only time "landing decisions" is relevant is if you are diverting. Otherwise, dispatch has already calculated you can do it or you wouldn't be there in the first place. Get through as much checklist as you can to stop the fire, but don't get yourself further from terra firma if you're burning.

[vilas]

Just land or don't land is no decision. Similarly On approach means nothing. How much time it will take to land and bring the aircraft to full stop and attend to the engine will decide your actions. If you are on final Approach and less than a minute to touch down that will be less than 500ft you can go ahead and land do the drill on ground. But if you are above 1000ft then you must at least secure the engine. If the fire is gunuine then it's time critical. Landing without securing cannot be from any height.

[Vessbot]

Just land or don't land is no decision. Similarly On approach means nothing. How much time it will take to land and bring the aircraft to full stop and attend to the engine will decide your actions. If you are on final Approach and less than a minute to touch down that will be less than 500ft you can go ahead and land do the drill on ground. But if you are above 1000ft then you must at least secure the engine. If the fire is gunuine then it's time critical. Landing without securing cannot be from any height.

Didn't you advocate landing without securing from less than 500 ft, 2 sentences prior?

[Av8rMarc]

Just land or don't land is no decision. Similarly On approach means nothing. How much time it will take to land and bring the aircraft to full stop and attend to the engine will decide your actions. If you are on final Approach and less than a minute to touch down that will be less than 500ft you can go ahead and land do the drill on ground. But if you are above 1000ft then you must at least secure the engine. If the fire is gunuine then it's time critical. Landing without securing cannot be from any height.

No one is saying don't fight the fire. Going around at 1000' because you haven't "secured" an engine is dangerously bad judgement. Continue your checklist, but, for your passenger's sake... LAND THE AIRCRAFT. You are correct that there is no decision to be made here. The ground is right in front of you - GET ON IT NOW if you are burning.

[safetypee]

Compare situations; takeoff, fire after V1, how long before you take recall actions.
Up to 400ft at V2, single engine climb, low rate. 2 min at WAT limit ?

Approach, 2 min at 600 ft/min; 1200 ft, shutdown on the runway if unable earlier.

[vilas]

Didn't you advocate landing without securing from less than 500 ft, 2 sentences prior?
Yes! I did. Ah! I think you misunderstood. Landing without securing has to have a time limit can't be from wherever on the approach you are.

[vilas]

Compare situations; takeoff, fire after V1, how long before you take recall actions.
Up to 400ft at V2, single engine climb, low rate. 2 min at WAT limit ?

Approach, 2 min at 600 ft/min; 1200 ft, shutdown on the runway if unable earlier.
​​​​​​ Two points
With engine fire you are on two engines and not on one. You reach 400ft very fast.
Second at least for Airbus for fire 400ft not necessarily mandatory. Fire is the only ECAM that appears straight away unlike EFATO where it comes after 30seconds. So upto you. If aircraft under control can start actions.

[safetypee]

Vilas, my # 12 might lack clarity; alternatively you assume too much - fire without loss of thrust is not a guaranteed situation.

First action height is operator specific, influenced by aircraft type and manufacturer's recommendation.
Some older types range 200 - 1000 ft; debatable quick action to extinguish a fire, or delayed action to minimise incorrect engine shutdown.

The comparison is an illustrative example of how context can influence thoughts.

[Centaurus]

https://www.skybrary.aero/index.php/AT72,_vicinity_Budapest_Hungary,_2016?utm_source=SKYbrary&utm_campaign=39096dac15-%23670+After+landing%2C+if+there+has+been+a+fire&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_e405169b04-39096dac15-276530305 get through as much checklist as you can to stop the fire, but don't get yourself further from terra firma if you're burning.
Which is exactly what the pilot of the ATR72 did (he continued climbing) in the above reported incident.

[vilas]

It was a panicky reaction by the crew. They should have carried out the complete Engine fire drill to shut down and feather the prop and then could have done a visual circuit to land. What they did not only didn't save any time but exposed the engine to possible disintegration. 400ft on approach is not same as after takeoff.

[Pugilistic Animus]

I would land on any runway in a fire even if I overrun a little bit. One does not have, " significant time" most fires that I know we'll the pilots could not make it back as determined by the investigator. Time is a very precious commodity in an inflight fire, seconds and minutes count.. .GET TO THE GROUND!!!

As a aside, multiple unrelated systems failures are a hallmark of fires, other than just alarms.

[Dave Therhino]

I would land on any runway in a fire even if I overrun a little bit. One does not have, " significant time" most fires that I know we'll the pilots could not make it back as determined by the investigator. Time is a very precious commodity in an inflight fire, seconds and minutes count.. .GET TO THE GROUND!!!

As a aside, multiple unrelated systems failures are a hallmark of fires, other than just alarms.

This is an engine fire safety engineer talking, not a pilot:

The vast majority of modern turbofan engine fires are caused by fluid leaks where the fire is contained in the engine fire zone, and most of these are localized fires within a portion of a zone and do surprisingly little damage. The engine fire zones are designed to be capable of isolating such fires from the rest of the airplane, including large fluid fires, for several minutes of continued engine operation and a subsequent residual fire period after the leaking fluids are cut off or used up. Such fires are not an immediate threat to the airplane when all the detection, fluid shutoff, and fire containment features function as intended. In fact, the fire bell is inhibited on most modern airplanes during takeoff between about 80 knots and 400 feet AGL to help prevent crews from doing an RTO above V1 due to a fire warning because such an RTO is a greater risk than the fire. An engine fire warning without evidence of a severe damage event (a big noise and/or vibration) should be addressed by following the fire procedure as soon as practical. If you are in the last stages of final approach it makes sense to focus on safely completing the landing rather than doing a late go around with a questionable engine just to run the fire procedure.

On the other hand, if you hear/feel a big bang and feel heavy vibration, you can't assume that the nacelle fire containment provisions have remained intact without a visual inspection, and it becomes a high priority to secure the engine quickly (flying the airplane first of course). However, even in these cases, shutoff of the fuel at the spar valve should prevent a continuing large fire that spreads to the strut and wing. The possible exception to this is an uncontained rotor failure or a large case burnthrough event, which have the potential to breach a fuel tank. These are very rare events - well under 1% of engine fires, and probably more in the ballpark of 0.1% of fires - and rotorbursts very effectively announce themselves as severe damage events.

[Pugilistic Animus]

This is an engine fire safety engineer talking, not a pilot:

The vast majority of modern turbofan engine fires are caused by fluid leaks where the fire is contained in the engine fire zone, and most of these are localized fires within a portion of a zone and do surprisingly little damage. The engine fire zones are designed to be capable of isolating such fires from the rest of the airplane, including large fluid fires, for several minutes of continued engine operation and a subsequent residual fire period after the leaking fluids are cut off or used up. Such fires are not an immediate threat to the airplane when all the detection, fluid shutoff, and fire containment features function as intended. In fact, the fire bell is inhibited on most modern airplanes during takeoff between about 80 knots and 400 feet AGL to help prevent crews from doing an RTO above V1 due to a fire warning because such an RTO is a greater risk than the fire. An engine fire warning without evidence of a severe damage event (a big noise and/or vibration) should be addressed by following the fire procedure as soon as practical. If you are in the last stages of final approach it makes sense to focus on safely completing the landing rather than doing a late go around with a questionable engine just to run the fire procedure.

On the other hand, if you hear/feel a big bang and feel heavy vibration, you can't assume that the nacelle fire containment provisions have remained intact without a visual inspection, and it becomes a high priority to secure the engine quickly (flying the airplane first of course). However, even in these cases, shutoff of the fuel at the spar valve should prevent a continuing large fire that spreads to the strut and wing. The possible exception to this is an uncontained rotor failure or a large case burnthrough event, which have the potential to breach a fuel tank. These are very rare events - well under 1% of engine fires, and probably more in the ballpark of 0.1% of fires - and rotorbursts very effectively announce themselves as severe damage events.

Great information! I did stray a bit from the topic of engine fires though:O