How serious is a cargo fire?
 

Accident: Singapore A333 near Bangkok on Apr 22nd 2013, cargo fire

Report regarding the SQ 330 cargo fire.

Wouldnt fire indication + burning smell = immediate evac shortly after to grinding to a halt after landing instead of taxying in and offloading via aerobridge?

Thoughts.

What is the risk of injuring people by doing an emergency evacuation vs waiting the 2-3 minutes to get to a gate and getting the punters off quickly via stairs or aerobridge, given that the holds are certified to contain the fire and have extinguishing systems?

Depends on the length of the flight and a few other things but I reckon you would get as much arm chair criticism, particularly if you hurt someone, if you slammed on the anchors and chucked everyone off via the slides.

I'm with you Zapatas.:ok:
Cargo fires are desperately serious and are the one thing that has bought down many a plane this last decade, especially with the rechargeable batteries (Lithium-ion/nickel-cadmium) everywhere now.
The risk at the bay is the rush of oxygen exploding any residual, right next to the terminal facilities, when cargo doors open. Firies (and baggage handlers!) to be well notified of course.
It's the one thing you don't mess with in planes.
Happy Landings:ok:

Fortunately these types of events are rather rare these days hence there's not a lot of experience to be thrown around here.
Having said that though we do live in a very litigious world these days so any Capt would be faced with making a tuff decision & that's whether to punch out once the A/C came to a full stop or continue to a more suitable area for a more organized evac, this is the real dilemma.
I would think that under a hypothetical situation not unlike this event that returning to the gate then whilst arranging to offload the pax the plane really starts to melt down & have the potential to make the whole situation far worse by having a burning plane parked up against a terminal possibly full of other people.
In a court of law with the Coroners report in hand (meaning there where deaths resulting from this decision to return to the gate) it would be hard to justify the above decision in the eyes of the law when available to the Capt was an immediate evac on the Rwy especially when there was any doubt as to the status of the fire. The risk of injuries upon slide activation is pretty much an acceptable risk, is returning to the gate with an unknown fire status in the hold acceptable? There in lies the 'burning' question.

All food for thought & a worthwhile discussion.

Wmk2

I'd much rather a broken leg or even a broken back than a single fatality. Given that aircraft are certified to be evacuated in 90 seconds if need be, you could reasonably expect that to blow out to 2 minutes, but show me an airport where you can land, taxi to the terminal, have an aero bridge in position and the aircraft evacuated in a similar timeframe.

The fire extinguishing systems in cargo holds are to allow you time get the aircraft on the ground, not give you time to taxi to the gate after landing. Remember Saudia 163?

Get down, get stopped, get out.

Like I say it depends on a range of issues, but don't forget that a cargo fire has been determined not to be something that is going to cause the aeroplane to immediately be destroyed. Discussions about cargo fires in freighters don't count in this discussion because they are entirely different beasts with entirely different rules in what can and cannot be carried.

ETOPS certified aeroplanes, like the SQ 330, have been certified to be up to 180 minutes from a suitable diversion field, so for my money a minute or two to get to the gate and then get everyone off safely, uninjured, then open the hold and sort the fire out is something worth considering, would I do it in every circumstance - probably not, but I would not be criticising the crew for not dumping the punters onto the runway or taxiway via the slides.

In this instance it seems to have been the correct decision, I didn't read about any injuries and the aeroplane, according to the report, was ferried back to Singapore, so it can't have been too badly damaged.

You really think the Airport authority want an Aircraft on fire to park at a gate!!:D.

On ground Fire indication confirmed with smoke and smell........EVACUATE....

NOW

Saudia learnt the hard way - 301 died due smoke inhalation

ASN Aircraft accident Lockheed L-1011 TriStar 200 HZ-AHK Riyadh International Airport (RUH)
Saudia Flight 163 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Almost all onboard cargo bay fire systems are NOT Fire extinguishers - they are Fire suppression. Because they dont extinguish fires, merely supress them to give you more time to get the thing on the deck - dont confuse the two. If your fire supression extinguishes the fire then you got lucky.

Get it on the deck, get everyone out and get the Fire crews out. Don't risk the lives of your passengers in the hope that a fire system has managed to exceed it's design specification because there are 2 reasons a fire alert goes away - either the fire/smoke is gone (extinguished) or the fire detector head is gone (destroyed by the fire) and good luck figuring out which one it was at FL380.

but don't forget that a cargo fire has been determined not to be something that is going to cause the aeroplane to immediately be destroyed

Maybe not so simple for lithium fires ...

At least most here say there's only one decision, get out now.
Am sure the RFF & ATC will let you amble up to the terminal & start unloading after you have made an emergency return due fire indications, NOT!
ALL fires indicated or known on-board a plane whether that be in the cargo hold or in the dunny need to be treated with the utmost urgency to get on the ground & evac as necessary.

'Burnie' is quite correct, (although suppression is the same as removing one of the three sides of the fire triangle albeit temporarily IE: 02) cargo suppression systems buy you time that's all & along the same lines as that Titanic movie "the pumps only buy you minutes not hours". We've all seen what happens when cargo fires overwhelm the suppression system.




Wmk2

Whilst I wouldn't advocate taxiing to the terminal.

I would advocate, stopping on the runway & taking a deep breath before calling for the Evacuation checklist.

Speak to your training department at your own airline & have a read of the capabilities of ARFFS.

http://www.faa.gov/documentlibrary/m...50_5210_23.doc

In short. As the aircraft is slowing on the runway, ARFFS vehicles will be using infrared detection systems to locate the source of heat and fire.

As you park the brake your aircraft may be subject to a skin piercing probe that penetrates your cargo hold and immediately provides a massive volume of fire suppressant to extinquish the fire.

Meanwhile. It may start raining in the cabin as other probes pierce the aircraft upper fuselage surface & spray water into the cabin to both reduce heat levels, ventilate possible smoke and provide immediate relief from the affects of a possible onboard fire.

So, stop on the runway. Pause & give thought to that fact you may achieve immediate and better relief than directing the punters down the slides.

Have the fire commanders frequency up on comm 2 and consider what assistance may be available seconds after you park the brakes.

(The usual caveats regarding my advice apply)

MC.

Air Canada Flight 797 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Broken pax is a much better outcome than charred pax.

Flyhardmo.

I think parking the brakes & calling for an Evacuation is a hangover from the checking days in the Sim. Do you know the Evacuation procedure = pass the check ride.

It gives little thought to opening a door and providing an instant increase in oxygen supply to accelerate a fire and the modern day capability of the ARFFS.

MC

To put it simply ARFFS will not pierce a pax area that still has pax in it otherwise they WILL cause serious injury.

They will however pierce an aircraft that has evacuated.


Cargo holds they can/will pierce, if safe, straight away upon confirmation of any Dangerous Goods onboard

The point I was trying, unsuccessfully, to make was that unless we were there we shouldn't criticise the crew for the decisions they made.

There is no absolute answer in these situations and I don't believe anyone can say, with absolute certainty, that any course of action was the correct one.

The crew, in this instance, got everyone off uninjured, the aeroplane so it seems from the news report was not significantly damaged.

Regardless of what the crew on the day decides someone will arm chair quarterback their decisions and say that they should have done this or done that.

That has to be hard on the crew.

MC, are you a firey?

Does Australia's airport RFF have the same capability as the US? If so why are the crews not given different procedures. Does it differ from a/p to a/p? It's a slippery slope.

I will not change from what I've been given without other advice, if what has been done for decades is no longer suitable the changes need to come from top down.

OK,
You get a smoke warning, you do the extinguisher/suppression thing and land.
Fire commander says he cannot see any smoke or fire near fuselage. He can see a little smoke near wheels, what do you do?:confused:

(A situation with obvious smoke and heat is a different thing!:eek:)

This is actually a current sim exercise.

Evacuating a full passenger load, probably with a few serious injuries/broken bones, possibly elderly fatalities?:ooh:
I bet the airport is happy with a closed runway for many hours.:hmm:

Versus, taxi off the runway, evaluate and do a precautionary disembarkation (which can be upgraded at any time to full evacuation) preferably via stairs but perhaps slides, done in an orderly manner. All the time fire services standing by (but NOT opening hold doors until pax off):ok:

Unfortunately snakecharma, no one on the aircraft has perfect information.

You know there is an indication of fire. There may be a smell.

You have absolutely no way of knowing the severity or likely course of the fire once the aircraft is stationary.

Therefore you MUST invoke the precautionary principle and evacuate.

To put that another way, the situation you describe is exactly analogous to the question about going around: Its better to be asked why you went around rather than why you didn't....

..Speaking as an incinerator of a C172, you have no way of knowing what is going to happen.

Aero club bar talk!

ANCPER

No I'm not a firey, but know a guy who was. I do recall him telling me about skin penetrating devices and he worked in Australia. So some ports may have that capability.

I don't know the ARFFS capability of all the airports between Australia and London. But what I'm saying is where possible and that includes if time is available and there is no greater urgency. To utilise the fire commanders advice.

Like, I said. They can use infrared so they can pin point a source of heat and they can pump suppressant into a cargo hold pretty quickly and immediately see via infrared if the fire looks contained.

Tankengine,

SLF and a curious one here. I had the same idea about vacating the runway and having steps standing by if fire and smoke is not detected. As an SLF I am more concerned about a wheelchair for life though than burn on an aircraft. Hence I like to participate on a training evacuation to get the feeling.

Rwy in Sight

Aero club bar talk? Absolutely!

Do what your SOPs say.

This is a double bind problem: Evacuate, with concomitant injuries, and the fire turns out to have been relatively minor and easily controlled by the Firies: "You overreacted Bloggs!"

Don't evacuate and the fire turns out to be serious, leading to loss of life."You were negligent Bloggs".

What kills people in emergencies is failure of imagination, as in the Black Saturday fires in Victoria. "Who would have thought? Who could have known?" those are the refrains you hear afterwards when that happens.

Yep, id rather be standing on the grass looking back at the Aircraft wondering what just happened than sitting in it whilst it burns........

Option 1/ definitely get out in one piece NOW and find there is no fire later on....... Oh well

Or 2/ stay in the Aircraft with 250+ other people hoping it is a false alarm and not a real threat........AND POSSIBLY DIE.

IF THERE IS DOUBT THEN THERE IS NO DOUBT....

Bear in mind that a cargo SMOKE indication is not necessarily a fire. Neither is a burning smell. The SMOKE indication can remain after extinguisher discharge as the agent also sets off the detectors.

Evacuation may not be the only option if a situation is unknown, static or controllable, but always remains an option.

As an airline pilot there is only one thing that really concerns me. A FIRE! everything else can be managed and controlled.

This is an absolute no brainer.

1. Land
2. Stop as fast as safely possible
3. Evacuate on the runway

No, if's or buts.

There is a fire and it is confirmed. GET OFF THE AEROPLANE!! Don't taxi. Don't prolong anything. You just never know whats about to happen and thats the problem.

Nit picker, does your airline have precautionary disembarkation as an option?:confused:

Yes it does but that in the first instance requires stairs or bridge in place. In the second it uses the slides anyway although it's supposed to be "controlled" ( yeah right that's going to work!! )

Unless multiple stairs met the Aircraft and were able to be placed very quickly I wouldn't be sitting on my hands hanging around. :D

This SQ A330 incident was apparently a real Fire and for the life of me I cannot see why they didn't take the first opportunity to get the hell off the Jet.......

Ignorance is bliss I guess and luckily this time it worked out ok.....:ouch:

This is a decision it must be done by the Captain. If the situation is under control and you are on the ground it could be an idea to taxi to a terminal that is close to your position and it is in sight.


Personally, I would have evacuated just after aircraft was landed safely.

Most airlines allow some discretion if there is no physical sign of fire and there is reasonable cause to believe the indication is spurious, eg after cargo spraying. Or perhaps no hotspots on the thermal imaging and freezing conditions outside make an immediately available air bridge the least hazardous option.
Incidentally, the whole 'precautionary evacuation' via air stairs idea is only practical if the airport has plenty of advance notice. It can take 20 minutes at large airports (even in an emergency) for them to arrive.

Why would you ( or the Airport authority ) want to taxy an Aircraft with a possible Fire onboard containing tonnes of JetA1 onto a parking stand NEAR OTHER AIRCRAFT AND THE TERMINAL BUILDING...........

Come on people think.

If it's already at the gate then fine use the bridge, otherwise stop on a taxyway and then decide......

ICAO DG RESPONSE GUIDE
 

Drill 9Z I believe!

Fully agree the place to be is open Tarmac, away from the terminal.:ok:
Narrow taxiways also an issue with fire equipment getting past aircraft and popping slides etc.

MC
 

For along time I've held the view we don't know enough about what RFF can do, also we lack any real knowledge about fires other than "bad". I don't think we are trained enough about using the Fire Commander or given any real info on the RFF in general, however it would be a brave pilot to assume anything based on a little knowledge and simply go off and change procedures. One point that has been drilled into me over the years and that is with fire time is of the essence. You'll be lucky to have a fire where the RFF is on immediate hand as you come to a halt, ready to act. In addition, while I like the idea of an precautionary evac with stairs, again it's the time factor waiting for them to get to you.

Broken bones etc can be mended, it's a lot harder doing skin grafts and as always you'll be facing the inevitable "you didn't have the full picture and you waited, WHY?" Taxiing to a gate, waiting for the bridge/stairs takes time, time you MAY regret not using differently later.

Btw, those who say..."go to the closest gate"...good luck with that. How are the gate attendants going to know why you've pulled up unscheduled, don't expect the bridge to just roll out while they're making calls saying "who TF is this" on the phone. Lots of confusion likely in that scenario.

Big wide runway offers RFF the best access to the aircraft especially if its muddy and wet off the paved surfaces.

Also, there is more to the SQ story than the report indicates.

"....but I reckon you would get as much arm chair criticism, particularly if you hurt someone...."

Not by anybody who counts.

Yes people will be injured during an evacuation but this concern should never be part of the decision making when fire bells are ringing.

I have yet to hear of a captain facing charges for injuring pax during an evacuation when doubt existed.

I can just imagine an aircraft with fire taxiing into an area where all bays are full. Pilots with no choice evacuating passengers in a crowded area with turbines running in several bays and then the aircraft burning in the middle of an entire fleet of parked aircraft. Not too many scenarios come to mind that had the potential for a more horrific outcome.

It's difficult to believe that some would even consider taxing to a gate. You've just declared an emergency for Eg the RFF are at the ready for yr arrival, ATC have all but stopped everyone where they stand as the Airport is now on emergency alert, you land & then say oh we wanna taxi to gate xx as we 'think' the fire is no longer a problem.
ATC would be out of their minds to let a well laden A/C that has just declared an emergency to wander off into a busy ramp which I might add may not be available as you where not expected anyway. Just totally way off the mark to even consider such an action. Stay away from other planes evac as the A/C is designed to cater for such an event, the crew are trained, the RFF are very well trained & you have every right as a commander to make such a decision.

Just not gunna happen, well by any responsible commander that is.


Wmk2

I posted that as information that some might find useful during this discussion.
I recently read a report of an RTO of a 737 flown by an Irish operator, condensation from the aircon occurred at the same time as a strange smell when take-off thrust was set, the aircraft was evacuated based on both visual and olfactory cues and one passenger broke her pelvis and her neck. There were other injuries as well. Nothing was found to be wrong with the aircraft.
Just food for thought. I think I would have evacuated the aircraft in the Singapore case but it is definitely a topic worthy of robust debate.
Sunfish's advice to follow your SOP's is often not helpful as the SOP's can't cover all the variables and are rarely black and white in their advice.

That's an interesting statement. One imagines that the passengers of ValuJet 592 would be inclined to disagree, were they not all dead.

ANCPER.

I've had the experience of an actual "fire warning" at the gate with a full load of passengers.

With the benefit of previous experience, all I'm saying is use all available resources in the decision making process.

In my case I had persons immediately outside the aircraft to confirm no fire & an evacuation was not required.