GlueBall

Forget the Hudson in daylight. Ever seen "deadliest catch"? Imagine being over the Pacific in December at night with 30 feet waves.

"I will make a controlled ditching"

Good luck!

I will descend to 25000 feet, depressurize the aircraft since that will at least kill everything that burns around the batteries and keep my cockpit smoke free. Like that I will continue to an airfield and then make a high speed descent and landing.

I would agree 7600m/FL250 would tie in with the fire checklist.

Whether to depressurize to 25000' and continue or to ditch: in either case you're flipping a coin and taking your chances.

In both cases you'll be in no-mans-land, but the distinct difference with the ditching is that IMHO you'll be better able to judge your chances (day vs night, choppy ocean vs calm waters etc) instead of hoping and praying that the fire doesn't damage any vital components while you're counting down the minutes (or hours!) to the nearest diversion airport.

Those are going to be veeeeeery long minutes (or again, hours) sitting on top of an uncontrollable fire in the middle of the Pacific, Atlantic or the more uninhabitable parts of this planet. :eek:

I admit I don't really "get" the notion of trying to ascend in order to asphyxiate the fire in the back... at some point you're going to have to descend again, and the entire way down I'd be sweating bullets about a reflash. You'd have to spend a considerable amount of time at altitude hoping that a) the fire's out and b) the surrounding Class A combustibles aren't still smoldering, ready to light back off when the oxygen levels rise again.

No thanks. Head for the water while you've still got control.

GlueBall
 

I said "almost", so, no death sentence for the guys in USAirways, but aye for the guys in Ethiopian Airlines off the Comoros Islands.

Anyway, the point I'm trying to put across is, before deciding to ditch, perhaps some thought should be put into whether you are actually gonna survive the ditching. In the simulators or LOFTs, a lot of guys are under the impression that, hey, ditching is no big deal. We'll ditch, land smoothly parallel to the waves, then we'll hop on to the back and grab our life raft, torch, first aid kit, ELT. Oh, and maybe some water and chips will help. After which, we will jump off the stricken plane into the sea, swim towards the inflated raft, dry ourselves off and wait for help to arrive.

Then again, we all know that nothing is all nice and dandy in real life.

So, just throwing around different ideas before deciding to take a dip in the sea.

All this talk about ditching vs staying high to starve a fire is largely a waste of time. We're talking about putting a single layer of gauze bandages on a severed jugular vein.

Undoubtedly true however,

If you're going to have to choose between certain death and possibly almost certain death, than still the second option is the best.
There have been numerous crews and single pilots that ditched all around the world in WWII, a lot of them survived, even in the arctic ocean and without the possibility for immediat rescue like we have in present days.
there have even been pilots that survived jumping out of a burning plane over land, without a parachute.
There has never been a flightcrew that survived while staying in a burning plane so the choice is simple really (in hindsight !! ).

That's the whole dilemma; when to decide that something so drastic as ditching is better than try to keep on going, a split second decision that most people are not able to make quick enough.
That's where Sully excelled.

... exactly , the point also to be made in a similiar ( sic ) vein is that you should never , ever juggle razorblades. If it is found out to be Lithium Ion batteries as a cause in this horrible incident , we are all test pilots.

and if we are all test pilots ....
 

The stuff has to go seafreight.. end of.

As a humble, short haul bod flying in Europe (well kind of, but never over oceans) carrying pax & occasionaly DG in the hold, this confirms that A - I don't wanna do long haul (the swimming pool " ditching" is more than enough for me ) & also, that I don't wanna be a "Freight Dog".

Those of you who are have my admiration, an occasional night-flight is OK but I am not a vampire, and carrying God -knows -what in the back with the only guarantee being your trust (? :ooh: ) in the Freight Forwarder doesn't do it for me.
If the batteries are the prob, I hope that the fact this happened a long way from FAA/JAR territory doesn't stop the powers that be saying N.F.W. (No . . . . . . . Way ) to future carriage of these nasty little devices.

Sure all the pax (& crew, never mind electronic flightbag I mean personal) aboard , have at least 1 or 2 Batts, but that is not 400 kg of the b@stards.
"Bad things happen in threes" must not be allowed to prevail in this case, that is now two young 744F's operated by reputable companies barbecued in the descent, there must NOT be a third ! ! :=

In reality it is quite a dilemma.
If you ban anything containing LiPO Batteries from Air Freight a SIGNINIFCANT percentage (read >20%) of the Cargo Crews might loose their jobs given the percentage of electronics in Air Freight.
If you continue as it is today Cargo Crew are exposed to a disproportionate risk compared to their Pax brethren.

The minimum would be to drastically increase regulation for shipping of these things.

Back in the UPS thread I proposed to regulate the charge state of Lithium Bettries for air Freight.
They carry their own ignition source with them only if they are charged to more than 10-15%. Below that level they are cimbustible but not capable of self ignition, which is the main difference to most other combustible freights.
where I'm still not sure is the question if you can't extinguish a LiPo Fire.
Having seen a short circuited LiPo 500g battery myself it could be kept in check by putting it into water. There were some bubbles but that was it. No fire, no glow, no sparks, nothing fancy.
The Lithium content of a 150g Battery is about 0,5g. It might contribute to the fire but it is not the main combustible. The main fuel is the alcohol based chemicals inside which form the separator. That's highly flammable alcohol and propably 30 - 50 times more than the Lithium.
On the other hand I'm not sure if 25.000 ft is really a good idea. If not ditching I would say fly as high as you can. and get cool thin air in the Cargo compartment. I don't get the rational behind the 25000 ft.

The problem with extinguishing a LiPo fire is that the main tactic to stop the chain reaction is to cool them. That will stop the progressive short circuiting inside the battery. I'm not really sure what will happen without oxygen but without cooling. I would tend to say the fire would extinguish at least mostly but I haven't seen it fisrt hand so I don't know for sure.

If Rep John Mica (R-FL) has anything to say about it, the regulating will be left to the ICAO. He introduced an amendment to His own FAA Re-Authorization Bill that expressly prohibits the FAA from issuing any regs that are "more stringent" than the ICAO. H.R. 658 SEC. 814.

"....Mica rejected Democratic fears of increased fire hazards, and said failing to limit the FAA on this issue could be costly for companies.

"If we didn't have this provision in there, there's be a $1.1 billion dollar impact on industry," he said. 'This is a good provision. It needs to be in the bill.'"

Lithium battery air transport a point of contention in FAA debate - The Hill's Floor Action

Glad to know where his loyalty lies. The UPS F/O was his own constituent and this Amendment was put into the bill after the crash.

This prohibition is not in the Senate version of the bill.

Do cargo airlines charge a premium for this kind of cargo?

Freight Dog mate of mine told me he was carrying 50+tons of goods with lithium batts in them the other day.

Folks

Any firm evidence that lithium batteries had anything to do in this fire ?!

They might be suspect but seems a bit premature ...

premature is almost an anagram of temperature, there are no such things as coincidences

A fire on a ship at sea is almost as bad, and has the potential to destroy even more cargo, kill more people, and sink a much larger vessel.

I wonder if the presence of a suitably trained loadmaster would make any difference to a main deck lithium fire - if he got to it quick enough.

Thoughts?


Considering the volatility of these substances, this additional crewmember would most certainly mean just an added fatality to the mess at hand.

Airbus/Boeing and the Airlines need to get serious about preventing or fighting this kind of Fire.

1/ Better fire detection systems
2/ Live Video of the Cargo hold available to the crew of Pax and Cargo Aircraft
3/ Always have a Third crew member available to check/fight the fire in a Cargo only Aircraft.
5/ Provide the crew with the plastic clear view bubble to wear so the can see the instruments if Smoke becomes thick in the cockpit.
4/ Stricter controls over the handling/acceptance of DG's.

It can be done, it's just down to.......DOLLARS.

Tombstone Imperative won't work here as we are only killing 2 at a time.

The best bet is that the insurers get p1ssed at paying out for very young 744F's being trashed , only money (a force mainly for bad ,& occasionally good ) can save this.

If the insurers say "enough", some legislation ,vis a vis the batteries, will arrive. . if not ? don't be a freight-dog, no simpler solution.

Are we talking about next years problem or today's problem :confused:

If it's today's problem you better figure on working it at the carrier level of how you prepare shipments (packaging, cargo locations, etc.)

The cargo airline safety departments need to be working this. They should be a lot more effective than regulators and Pilot chat forums.

Agree with most of the posters here, this madness has got to stop, first UPS6 and now Asiana.
How many more disasters before authorities ban these batteries, in commercial quantities, from being air freighted?
My outfit regularly carries them out of IAH, so I have a vested interest.

JO.

Freezer bins?
 

Store them with the seafood?

Several posters have commented that it's the alcohol together with ambient oxygen that support the fire.

It would seem to be a step in the right direction if the batteries were shipped in a container devoid of oxygen. An inert gas, in a container w/ expansion chamber perhaps, would deprive the fire of an oxidant.

RIP an experienced crew, undoubtedly prepared for anything but this.

As a chemist, I've seen lithium Grignard reagants just "go" in inert conditions. No free oxygen, but within a carbonyl or alcohol environment.

The only way you can put these kind of fires out is either to use a specialist copper/nitrogen extinguisher, or to use sand to take the energy away.

The only other way to do it would be to pack the batteries with a chemical pack above them to stop the chain reaction, maybe an alkyl amino compound. But can you honestly see shippers paying for the extra weight?

A ship has a pressurized fire main, usually a decent firefighting crew, and the ability to flood the burning compartment, if all else fails, without throwing away every ounce of its stability.

With the type of hazards we're discussing here, the slow boat is the safest way to go.

Have you seen a container ship lately? MUCH of the cargo is carried well above the main deck, and there is little (if any) access to much of it. Also, I doubt individual containers have fire detection or suppression, so a fire would be detected only after a container was fully involved.

Fire mains and crew are fine in the engine room, but would be ineffective in the stack of containers above the main deck. They would also likely be of marginal effectiveness below the main deck.

I think it is significant that there are VERY few instances of electronics simply catching fire, even if you include the rash of bad laptop batteries a few years ago. I really believe there is something in the [lack of] packing and/or the quality of the batteries involved...

Okay, fair enough - but ponder this: assume, for the moment, that a fair number of overwater cargo shipments contain lithium batteries. Plenty of fancy electronic bits are packed into conex boxes and brought into ports every day.

Now ask yourself when you last heard of a major shipboard fire that was caused (or at least suspected of having been caused) by the cook-off of lithium batteries.

Then ask yourself why there might be a disparity between the two methods of shipment.

Early detection
 

Apart from banning lithium batteries in these amounts, from cargo aircraft, the only way to really do something effective is EARLY DETECTION.

We need a video surveillance system for critical places. This system MUST include thermal imaging cameras. There are several options -

One can be to take a snapshot when doors are closed, then compare it to just before take-off. If, despite packs running, there is a substantial increase in temperature anywhere in the area where the cameras are pointing, it can be investigated, before taking off.

Also, a gradual rise in temperature even in tenths of a degree can easily be spotted with thermal cameras - automatically. The technology is here, but these cameras are not cheap. But what is the price of each freighter crash - apart from loss of lives and the grief involved? Albeit expensive, the weight of the system would not be that much - compared to the protection offered.


It seems in the lithium case, the batteries are somehow triggered on ground - too high temperature when handling them? In Dubai, they were not even declared as dangerous goods, as far as I know. Leaving them in the Dubai blistering heat might have been enough to start a chain reaction. Might the same have happened in Incheon?

Even though early detection might not have helped over the middle of the Pacific, it would still be better to know that something is going on - which should NOT be going on.

How else would we know if a pallet is a ticking fire bomb, preparing for an inferno within minutes or hours?

Some fires makes lots of smoke, right from the start, others take a while before the smoke starts. And the smoke needs to get to the smoke detectors.

Thermal imaging with automatic temperature change monitoring would enable us to spot these issues, way before they get to this point. And hopefully even before we get airborne ...

Thinking of the crews of the Asiana and the UPS - let them not have perished in vain. And let there not be other crews to follow. Please.

passengers ...
 

now lets get this straight .. the question we all have to start asking is how would we feel as 400kg of these things is loaded onto OUR aircraft, as yet the evidence that these were the ignition source is speculative, but an awful lot of people, myself included are drawing conclusions.

IF there is no means by which to inert these items for transit, then they have no place on a civil air cargo manifest. IF special conditions are required to ship them by sea, so be it, there would have to be a cultural shift by the manufacturers, and freight agencies alike, but consolidation would take place of consignments, and if they are required to be shipped as deck cargo only, once again, so be it, the industry has to adapt to new challenges.

I accept the fact that the worst scenario on a vessel is a fire, at least the option exists to get the offending container over the side, and the crew at least have the option of taking to the lifeboats, to date I am unaware of a Martin Baker seat option for the B747F.

Our objective ( as the flying community) has to be to prevent these accidents occurring, there is no caveat "if financially expedient". there cannot be. Until there is a method of preventing these fuses randomly igniting, bringing down aircraft, killing crew and putting those on the ground in peril ... they have no place on the manifest.

To accept them makes the crew passengers, we can no longer assess or control the risk to our aircraft or guarantee our personal safety.

Safety Regulatory enforcement are always mouthing safety niceties in public but do their utmost to help freight companies avoid costly measures. I believe they will just increase the hours flight crew spend on Dangerous Goods ground training; before long all the hoo ha about this trgedy will be forgotten.

This another very sad event afetr the harrowing story of the UPS freighter in Dubai.

Are Li batteries alowed as hold cargo on PAx flights , I am lead to believe that a large proportion of airfreight travels in the underfloor holds of widebodies rather than specialsied freighters and flying across an ocean or remote wasteland ontop of a few tons of these is really scary thought . If they are permitted it would seem literally a catastrophe waiting in the wings, although wasn't SAA 747 brought down years ago in the Indian Ocean by a cargo hold fire with large loss of life?

And please don't get me wrong I am not for a second suggesting it only matters that these potentially dnagerous devices are kept off Pax flights, I think it is a tragedy that two crews have already lost their lives and do not think any more aircrew should be put at risk for comemrcial expediency

PB

It's interesting to read arguments about ditching in the ocean (at night).


BUT, if you watch the FAA video about laptop fires and you understand the fireextinguishing process in a cargohold then you will quickly realise the efforts are futile.
It is evident from the video that the batteries need sustained cooling to avoid another fire due to thermal runaway.
Th extinguisher will put the fire out, but doesn't cool the pack. The same goes for depressurising the hull, if you are high enough it might put out the intial fire, but doesn't cool the batteriepacks, resulting in a secundary fire, as these fires appear to be fully dependent on thermal runaway it is the fairly safe to assume the batteriepacks of the same type in the direct vicinity of the fire will also ignite, thus resulting in a chain reaction and a subsequent uncontrollable fire.

It leaves only two possible options open to avoid repeats in the future,
1. ban said cargo from aircraft and in addition restrict appliances on
passenger aircraft(the latter is virtually impossible, think laptop, phones
2. In order to give aircrew a way out, either retrofit with ejectorseats or
provide a means that aircrew can bail out if it comes to the worst.
For example the escapeshute as fitted to concorde protypes.

Or carry DG only in truly fireproof containers that keep any fire inside without hurting the a/c. Thinking of the space shuttle's lightweight foam tiles as insulation here. Add some monitoring system and powerful extinguisher system with every container and you could feel at least a little safer than today.

Check tile demo pic:

ImageShack® - Online Photo and Video Hosting

Question: are Lithium batteries CAO or do they get loaded on pax a/c as well?
If they are CAO, why can they get loaded on cargo a/c taking into account that in case of a fire the crew can't do anything about it?

It was a 747SP Combi. There was a long government cover up with the usual conspiracy theories, eventually when apartheid ended the Truth and Reconcilliation Commission confirmed that the aircraft was carrying a secret shipment of solid fuel rocket propellant for a missile project. Interestingly this could not have been the original cause of the fire because it would have destroyed the aircraft in seconds rather than the time that they flew an attempted diversion. It is likely that a minor fire spread slowly until it reached the dangerous cargo.

Google for "Helderberg disaster" if you have a few hours to spare wading through the crackpot theories.

Some explanation regarding the carriage of lithium batteries on aircraft.

http://www.bureaudg.com/brochures/50rev03EN-Lithium.pdf

I like what nitpicker330 suggests.

Equally, from what others have suggested there is very little chance of sending Li batteries to their destination via the sea lanes, and no other. At least not yet. Commercial pressures abound. They are a greater force at work, but it seems an immediate solution could be to depower the batteries before shipment which removes their flammability. Added to that, shipment in a fire-proof container as an interim measure. I'd reckon Asiana will be doing something like that given they lost a bird. Others might take longer to come around, but it won't be long.

How long does it take to mandate this stuff once it's all figured out as necessary, desirable and, perhaps more importantly, cost effective? Waaaay above my pay grade, so back to mitigating the effects of a fire, should it break out, as interim measures.

On the subject of ditching: tough decision. Sully's case was not repeatable in this instance. At night, over land, on fire, no Hudson in sight...Sully's engines not working made flight an impossibility, unless they lit up again, to which Skiles worked tirelessly. Meanwhile, continued flight was a reality forced upon them. If we're questioning ditching, well, if it's a question that's only because the situation's not yet terminal.

Does being on fire mean you ditch? Only when you know you know further flight isn't an option. And there's the thing: you get a fire warning at altitude over water. You spend at least, AT LEAST, 10 seconds perceiving, analysing and acting in a co-ordinated manner. Now we're talking AT LEAST here, as any fiar dinkum pilot knows. To say otherwise is just not true. Do you spend eight to 15 hours of every flight on the edge of your seat waiting for the air molecules to just stop holding the airplane up?

No way, not unless you're Japanese. You don't sit there strategizing every minute of every flight, so a fire warning, any warning, will come as a surprise and you'll need time to analyse "wtf is this" before you act. That all takes time, so I reckon 10 seconds is a bare minimum for the circle to start with perception and end in action.

After that you divert immediately. But unless you're constantly strategizing and analysing your in-flight options, nearest airport, weather en-route, traffic to the left or right, who has the radio and why the **** Bloggs chose this moment in time to take a piss, then you're going to have to spend another minute, at least, be real, don't bull!!!! yourself, figuring out what dynamics have changed, where the traffic is, below, above, left or right; where is the nearest airport, no longer the nearest suitable; can we make it; should we put her down (land or sea), and then, "!!!!, you mean we have to ditch?"

I have never ditched, but I've thought about it long and hard, as genuine posters here are doing. I would want to honor the Asiana guys by suggesting they were not panicking; that they were doing their level best to keep it all under control while they got their checklists done in a rapid but orderly fashion before deciding on what options were available. Sadly, it didn't work out. Nor will it work out in future if the same happens in another cargo airplane (no, Li batteries are not permitted in the lower cargo hold of passenger airplanes, or any hold of a pax plane for that matter, so don't worry 'bout that, poster).


Good luck if it's you.

"no, Li batteries are not permitted in the lower cargo hold of passenger airplanes, or any hold of a pax plane for that matter, so don't worry 'bout that, poster)."

You sure?? !!!

There are 3 types of Lithium Ion batteries for cairrage :
ICAO codes ELI and ELM are exempted items able to be carried on pax a/c
the other ain't and is a CAO item (cannot remember the code-hey it's Friday and the Shiraz was great !)
Regardless, when casting a cursory eye over the NOTOC I consider all an ignition source. I take rare comfort to those placed in the lower hold (extinguishant avail) , the main deck ALWAYS gets inspected before doors close.
Route 2 is always programmed and I will divert at a wiff, that said the majority of my time is spent Asia ANC bound so ditching in the winter with 30 ft seas often at night is an option but hardly pallatable. End of the day never surrender and if that means sending both FO's aft to fight the fire then that is all that we have left. Have never seen Shemya even on a clear day but by Christ I am going to do my damdest to put her down.... or ?
RPwr

Rice Power, I'm afraid that you're not correct on a number of points. The codes "ELI" and "ELM" are not ICAO codes, they are IATA Cargo Interline Message Procedures (IMP) codes. ELI = excepted lithium ion batteries and ELM = excepted lithium metal batteries. There are also two other cargo IMP codes for lithium batteries, RLI = fully regulated, i.e. Class 9 lithium ion batteries and RLM = fully regulated lithium metal batteries.

Both types, excepted and fully regulated may be carried on both passenger and cargo aircraft, except that all lithium batteries are prohibited to, from and within the US when shipped as just batteries.

For some up to date information please read
Lithium Batteries - Guidance and Packing Instructions