C130 Fire in the Air over Pacific Ocean

[AA SLF]

The RNZAF Hercules suffered an engine fire over the Pacific Ocean "today" (time zone differences). Read the story at this LINK HERE (http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/eveningstandard/0,2106,2549103a6003,00.html) .

Glad that it was a safe divert and no harm to the crew or pax.

[small4]

Know the feeling! Copiloting a RAF Herc between Honolulu and Fiji in the late 70's. Luckily in our case the fire warning was not accompanied by an 'orange glow'. However, three hours at night, in cloud, on dead reckoning (Doppler unlocking and no astro) followed by a VOR approach to Nadi in a thunderstorm felt like a lifetime.

I'm sure it seemed the same to these guys and I'm very pleased to hear of the satisfactory ending to this incident.

[T_Handle]

nice one Lads!!!!

That's why we fly 4 engined aeroplanes!!!!

T

[mcdhu]

Wot - with 2 fire bottles!!!

Cheers,
mcdhu
:*

[The Gorilla]

Per wing No Cross Over

[T_Handle]

OK only 2 fire bottles is a bit poor for 4 engines....... would be nicer to have a couple per engine........ would be nicer still not to have a fire to use them on!!!!!:ok: :ugh: :ok:

[kmagyoyo]

:ok: Hats of Smeg, enjoy the pina coladas on the beach: you deserve them!

[Ignition Override]

small4-well done. That must have been a lousy end to a lonely, very tiring flight. Luckily, many airlines, in their commercial wisdom, now do 2-engine ETOPs.

Was that incident in the older C-130 which had an experienced Flight Engineer? Would it be safer in a newer C-130 which has no such Flight Engineer but lots of (er...) reliable computers, and saving the Dept of Defense (somewhere) a bit of money? Isn't money the important thing? :hmm:

[small4]

I.O. It was a good, old fashioned, steam driven C-130K.

That was in the days when we had real flight engineers. He (and we) spent two days on the ground stripping 64 feet of fire wire out attempting to discover the problem.

After a further interesting fire warning and engine shutdown on the approach to a disused former WW2 airfield in north Vanuatua, and an equally interesting 3-engine approach into Port Vila, we found a pinhole leak in one of the engine acceleration bleed valves. But only after a rejected takeoff on a test flight due to another fire warning! We had spent several days including the F/E up on a stand behind the running prop trying to find a suspected bleed leak. Finally it had burnt a large enough hole to be found.

I certainly agree with the previous posts on 'two shots and thats your lot' re the fire extinguishing system.

With an aircraft combat wired in the flight controls department to absorb battle damage, the lack of provision in the fire suppresion department always seemed a trifle strange.

That having been said, this is the first time I have personally heard of a situation where both bottles were definitely needed.

Perhaps someone out there knows of other such situations.

[Bof]

I am reminded of the early days - 67/68 when the beasts were new and Albert as a name had not even been invented! We went through a patch of spurious fire warnings and the fire warning refused to go out. The drill used to say Fire one shot. If the light doesn't go out - fire off the second shot!
Oh yeah, with no physical sign of fire, in the middle of the Atlantic, and deprive yourself of all fire protection. Definitely a case where it was politic not to follow the Emerg. checklist. I guess it's still the same. Has the system changed for the J ?