Ethiopean 787 fire at Heathrow

[abgd]

If you were a fire chief how much would you trust an initial report that there are no passengers in an aircraft? And if it turned out that the aircraft was destroyed unnecessarily, or the gate put out of commission long-term due to the lack of an adequate response, or the burning aircraft set fire to adjacent aircraft... you'd wish that you'd sent the whole fire crew.

If you doubled the size of the fire crew, would this prevent you from sending all of them to the same incident? It would be difficult to make the decision not to do so, if they were available.

The decision to send the whole crew seems to me the only reasonable one. After they had started tending to the fire and had more of a view as to how serious it was, perhaps they could have been taken back and the airport reopened sooner. To me this seems the only possible area for improvement.

[Dave's brother]

Nose dive?

Look a the share price nosedive

Ye Olde Pilot, a share price that goes from $107.50 down to $100, recovers to $104 then settles at $102 isn't exactly a great day on Wall Street - but it's no nose dive.

[Etud_lAvia]

@Romasik:

Well, it's not a battery issue, but definitely electrical issue related to too much electricity on this airplane.

Surely, this was meant as a joke!

The timing of the fire, and location of the visible damage, might be consistent with an unextinguished cigarette having smoldered among other inflammable materials (for example, linens in the crew rest compartment).

When a 787 has all its turbomachinery stopped, and is not hooked up to a ground cart, how "much electricity" does it have?

[despegue]

On ET B787, there is NO rear cabin rest area apparantly.
Can anyone confirm?

[HotDog]

If you read that rather dreadful site Airliners net, it has been agreed that ET do not have a rest area in the rear for cabin crew, only fwd for FD crew.

Not sure how accurate this info may be?

[PopeSweetJesus]

I fail to see why it being prepared to be towed is extremely suspicious, at least in the sense of foul play although I'm sure that will be thoroughly investigated. Don't know anything about the 787, but if they were prepping to tow, it seems like a least some of the systems were powered up. Aren't the brakes electric? If so and they had someone preparing to be a brake rider in the cockpit wouldn't some sort of electric power have to be on for the brakes to be operated?

[seacat001]

composite repair

my guess is 4 to 6 weeks for repair

fyi added info

http://www.niar.wichita.edu/chicagow...ance%20-%20Fawcett%20&%20Oakes.pdf

[sisemen]

Wearing my other hat as a bush fire fighter in Western Oz the policy of my Shire is to throw everything at the first report of a fire. Once it has been determined what the fire is then units not required can be turned back. However, everyone starts rolling. That way small fires don't become big fires.

On the other hand the neighbouring Shire policy is to send one unit out to check the fire report and call for additional units as required.

I'll give you one guess as to which Shire has had more out of control bush fires which require not only their own units to attend but a significant portion of neighbouring Shire units?

[Solar]

Anybody know how the fire was actually extinguished.
Did they have to use foam/water internally. I would have thought that using foam/water externally would only cool the skin but not effectively contain an internal fire.

[1a sound asleep]

Unconfirmed from somebody at LHR - Fire is strongly believed to be as a result of galley overheat - failure of coffee heater trip switch which was left on.Burnt out much of the galley and area above causing deep damage to aft bh and rudder/elevator system

[ZFT]

my guess is 4 to 6 weeks for repair

Really - and your expert analysis was based upon?

[Sheep Guts]

If there is heat damage to the composite shell, it may be a hull loss.

[seacat001]

aog repair

12 years of AOG REPAIRS on widebody boeing a/p

[Cacophonix]

12 years of AOG REPAIRS on widebody boeing a/p

I take it that you have completed a detailed damage assessment of the aircraft in question in order to come to such a precise repair duration estimate and thus are able to provide deeper insights to all those here who are merely conjecturing about the cause of this fire plus the amount of damage to the hull/fuselage?

[CityofFlight]

Caco... Based on seacat001 moniker and location, you could be very off base in your innuendo. Think Everett, home of the 787. Find Mulkiteo on the map.

[Cacophonix]

moniker and location, you could be very off base in your innuendo.

No innuendo at all. Just a reasonable question of somebody who has experience of repairing composites.

[Roo]

Curious, does the 787 have an avionics rack in the ceiling in front of the fin to house one of its two FDR/EAFR's? One in the front of the aircraft and a second at the back somewhere. I notice that's where the 777 FDR lives and thought the 787 could use a similar "survivable" location? If so it simply means electrical equipment lives near where the burn damage evident and this could be related.

[flying.monkeyz]

What's the likelihood of this aircraft written off?

[ATC Watcher]

Unconfirmed from somebody at LHR - Fire is strongly believed to be as a result of galley overheat - failure of coffee heater trip switch which was left on.

Now that is interesting .
In all (old) a/c I flew/still fly there is a master battery switch which is supposed to disable all these, and which you are supposed to use when you park and leave the aircraft. Is the 787 different ? or is it normal to leave power in the galley when long term parked on a modern large aircraft ?

[Karel_x]

I don't believe that coffee heater can be supplied from battery. If APU/GPU was not connected, I suppose that 115/235V AC buses were without power. Can anybody tell a exact location of remote power distribution unit (see fgure 3)?
http://www.boeing.com/commercial/aer...7_article2.pdf