Lithium Metal Fire over remote area
 

Gentlemen,

Consider the following scenario:

You are flying a heavy cargo plane, loaded with lithium metal batteries on the lower cargo hold, and you get a fire warning on that cargo compartment while flying on a remote area (only small airfields or desert/forest) beneath you.

Considering there is not really a way to figure out if the warning is true or false (and if it's true, there are only a couple minutes before you start having critical failures), what would you do?

Would you think it would be wise to ditch without knowing if it's a true fire?

I think for all of us who still carry 9FZ's cargo, it might be a valid concern.

Any fire is "Land as soon as possible", whether extinguished or not.

Any fire you can't extinguish, or can't be sure you can/have extinguished (as would be the case with Li fires) is "Land IMMEDIATELY"

Pretty straightforward diagnosis in my book, at least.

However, is the "ditching" going to be survivable? Landing a heavy in forest or mountains is certain suicide so better take your chances. Ditching in water? Your call, you've got a life and death judgement to make based on poor data.

Me. I'd tend believe a modern fire warning system.

But you decide...You're the Captain.

Thanks for the input.

I understand it will ultimately be a captain's decision, but that's my point, of the risk management of ditching or not. I don't think there is a right or wrong answer, that's why I'm trying to collect points of view. I 100% agree that regardless of confirmation or not, with a fire alarm you should land ASAP.

The point of "Land Immediately" is how immediate is that in regards to remote areas. Boeing QRH for example stays on that whole "land at the nearest suitable airport" area. Should you go for that "17 minute window"? What if UPS Flt 6 at Dubai (or Asiana Flt 991) had ditched right below them instead of trying to go for the airport? (playing Devil's Advocate here). At least they had a confirmed fire. However, If you look at avherald for example you will see a couple of false fire alarms. Perhaps it's time to have some sort of alternate confirmation method for fire (for example, a camera in the cargo hold?)

So the point is, would you attempt ditching or landing in a small field while flying over a remote area (let's say Africa, Greenland or something), even without a confirmation of the actual fire? Again, not discussing the "landing ASAP" when there are airports around you, but risking a possible life/hull loss in remote areas.

Not a right or wrong question here, just looking for different lines of thoughts.

Lithium battery fire?
 

If you have a warning that a serious lithium battery fire is starting while cruising along, I suggest you might be likely to find out whether it's real or not rather sooner than you have time to land.

Ideally, the batteries should be packaged so that a chain reaction fire is unlikely or would develop gradually. It seems that wasn't the case onboard the UPS6 747 in Dubai.

If the batteries are uncharged, then the suggestion to take the cabin pressure above 20,000 feet to starve the fire might be worth a gamble. But unless you can flood a well-ventilated fire with water, I don't think there's much hope of putting it out.

does water put out a lithium fire?

if you douse a magnesium fire with water you spectacularly excite the reaction.

My understanding is that the only way of controlling a lithium-ion battery fire is by dousing with water. Lots of water, for as long as it takes.

This will only extinguish the fire once the material has cooled sufficiently for the internal reaction to cease propagating. The video I've seen of this in action indicates that the water doesn't actually react with the lithium.

Probably just as well. Lithium, magnesium, sodium etc react spectacularly with water. It was demonstrated to us when I trained to be a firefighter. Good fun.

thanks for the info Tarq57

Here's a video of the "procedure".
FAA video.

The point is, we cannot get water to put a fire on the lower cargo hold, so there is not much use.

Lithium Ion batteries seem to be not as harmful as the Lithium Metal ones. It is my understading that the Li-Ion (recharchable) are transported without charge and Halon might have some effect fighting it. Lithium metal (CAO) are more dangerous (some details on the Boeing Aero magazine http://www.boeing.com/commercial/aer...ERO_2013q4.pdf) and it seems that halon has no effect on it.

I suggest watching this video Extinguishing In-Flight Laptop Computer Fires - Lithium Battery Thermal Runway - YouTube, specially at 6:13 to see what the halon extinguisher does. And that is the "least harmful" one...

Unfortunately those batteries are like flying bombs and on the flight deck of freighters, pilots are the "weakest link".

Personally I would descend to the MEA and start heading towards any airfield in the general direction of a larger one, if it becomes confirmed and uncontrolled I would either land at the small airfield and go off the end or ditch if becoming unmanageable. A crash in control is better than one out of control even if both have a pretty certain outcome. If there is no sign of fire by the time we are close to the small airfield I would opt to continue and land at the larger one that is further.

ps. I wouldn't be considering the airframe at all in this scenario. As far as I am concerned with a fire indication the airframe is disposable. Life is all that matters. The insurance company can sort out the rest.

Start your timer when you get the first fire warning.

Lower belly means you have fire bottles at your disposal. Use them, while diverting to the nearest adequate airport at the highest speed you dare.
I wouldn't descend below FL250 because you might need thin air.

The moment you have confirmation that the fire is real: ditch or make an off-airport landing within the infamous average 17 minutes of survival time...

Don't worry about the airframe; the moment a real fire breaks out it's a write off anyway.
Worry about one thing only; the souls on board.

And good luck, you'll need it.

Batteries are hazardous material. I personally prefer to cary ammunition than those evil materials. A fire in flight, at high altitudes, and remote areas, is fatal.
Fatal is also a ditching of a wide bodied aircraft.. I tried not to think about it, when in the air, although I never (till today) carried lithium batteries. It makes me nervous! I am just wondering, why this material is allowed to be carried on cargo aircraft, when it is proved that easily they can create havoc!:uhoh:

"...although I never (till today) carried lithium batteries..."


How do you know? It seems to be pretty clear that the threat is undeclared/uncertified shipments.

The amazing thing is that the industry has been so lucky that none of the crap/undeclared shipments have ended up in the bellies of passenger flights. Not yet, anyway. The clock is ticking.

The 2013 version of the IATA dangerous goods handling booklet introduced the new Emergency Response Guide code Z for Lithium type battereis. It sates something like (from memory) "Aircraft fire extinguishing systems may not extinguish this fire. Consider an immediate landing". That means now - it dosen't say "As soon a possible" at the nearest suitable airfield. That means NOW! On a highway, in a field, on a lake - or if half way across an ocean - ditch.

Does that answer your question?

Very exciting, indeed!:{

Dan, that's a bit my point. The Z letter tells you to consider an immediate landing. However, with the possibility of a false alarm, ditching in the middle of the ocean might be as deadly. I'm not even worried about hull loss, but life loss at ditching in unprepared surface. I say it's a matter of risk management, and as for now with the resources we have, ditching might still be better, but it would be nice to have some sort of visual confirmation of actual fire (such as cameras in the cargo hold or something).

Examples of false fire alarms:

Incident: Emirates A332 near Colombo on Nov 2nd 2013, cargo fire indication

Incident: Delta B752 near Pasco on Oct 21st 2013, cargo fire indication

not without some secondary confirmation
 

I wouldn't ditch, or land off-airport, with a cargo fire/smoke warning unless I had some kind of secondary confirmation it was the real deal. I've had too many false cargo smoke warnings for that.

The airplane I fly has temperature indication of the cargo compartments on the EICAS. That would be the obvious thing to check. Those temps may disappear when switching of the ventilation as per QRH response to the fire/smoke warning, so you'd have to check that right away.

Any accompanying system abnormalities would be dead giveaways.

And else, check for real smoke or smell. On the main deck that would be simple, have someone take a quick peak, while taking precautions.

That wouldn't work for the lower belly.

As the captain, you're the man in charge. So get all the info and make the decision. Not an easy one.

Being from an avition back ground, and now a chemist, I've got a few students to play with Li-ion batteries. You can put it out with halon or CO2 but it will re-ignite, water is the only way we found of "killing" it.

Purely from a cabin perspective, and in terms of dealing with consumer electronics which utilise such batteries. We are taught to extinguish with Halon/BCF and submerge, where possible, in water. Thankfully, we carry large ice bins which when full of water, will submerge almost all consumer electronics completely. If we can't submerge, then douse continuously with water till cooled.

Interesting discusion.