Sounds pretty convincing who the culprit is if that was the case. As the saying goes, where there's smoke, there's fire.

BTW, will the ATSB be investigating this? Does it come under their jurisdiction? I really hope not as we'd all have to wait probably 5 years for the final report. I reckon give it to the Indonesian NTSC to investigate; they usually have their accident/incident reports out much quicker than the ATSB.

Gives you pause for thought over our national carriers risk assessment of the minimal number of fire extinguishers on board....

Does anyone know what Etihad have on board other than the heat activated toilet extinguishers? Do the have both water and BCf (or equivalent?)

Somewhat unusual that

1) The airline allowed the flight to proceed with all pax from CGK onwards.
2) The Captain chose to continue the flight from CGK with all pax.
3) Access to the toilets was only restricted after the last fire was set.

Very cavalier (or amateurish) attitude towards aircraft safety on the part of Etihad.

Reports that up to 12 passengers detained for questioning

Cookies must be enabled. | The Australian

Back again? :*

Reports that bottled water was used at some point? Did they exhaust the extinguishers?


I've suggested before that there should be access points to the aircraft's water tanks so crew can plug in a hose with a nozzle or spray/mist wand.




mickjoebill

toilet extinguishers
 

How long would it take to replace/replenish the extinguishers at a diversion port?

If not possible, then assuming the MEL says none required for dispatch, that's a big call to continue knowing you have a firebug onboard.

The law follows the state of registry. Something to remember if you are traveling foreign.

Cabin fires? Uncontained? You've got 25 minutes to get out of the air.

That's a bit like saying it's unusual that you found your missing keys the last place you looked.

According to The Australian newspaper, "lighters and matches were confiscated in Jakarta before passengers were let back on the flight"

Presumably the aircraft was also searched for lighters and matches, but even so, it seems quite extraordinary that in the face of clear evidence that an actual (not merely potential) arsonist with a faulty or absent sense of self preservation was amongst the passengers, the flight continued with the culprit(s) aboard.

You could argue there was little else they could do but continue on, since they were unable to identify the culprit(s), but this seems to fly in the face of the disruption routinely caused by minor security breaches (Melbourne Airport's spokeswoman's phrase, not mine) at airports with no evidence at all of any malicious intent.

Seriously, it's OK to strand thousands for a few hours because someone turned their back on a door for 30 seconds, but it's not OK to strand several hundred people when you KNOW one of them has made several attempts to set fire to a long haul aircraft which is about to fly hours from land, because you don't know which one it was?

Nonsense
Regarding your reference to point number 3:

The intention is that the access to the toilets wasn't restricted immediately after the take off from Jakarta.
This should have been the captains solution assuming that he had no other choice but to proceed with the flight from there, and assuming that the identity of the arsonist was not even suspected at that point.

Instead the toilets weren't monitored or restricted after departing Jakarta and everyone just sat there waiting for this clown to have another go :ugh: