Engine Fire on short final
 

A while back I checked out on a new plane. During training, I was given an engine fire while within about 1 or two minutes of landing with the runway in sight. I continued the approach with the intention of dealing with it on the ground. At about 200 feet, we had to go around as the sim instructor said there was traffic on the runway so we went around and shut down the engine.

During the debrief, the instructor said that I should have gone around right away and dealt with the fire in the air because the manufacturer designed the aircraft to be able to deal with an engine fire and there would almost certainly be passenger injuries if we landed and then evacuated.

Any opinions on what others might do?

I would have landed as well. Swissair 111 has been a mental help for me to go for the sensible rather than the book in some situations... :ouch:

In flight fires at any phase will give you all kind of unkind situations that are not tested by the manufacturer where it will come down to airmanship and you will have to decide...

I think I'd point your instructor at the Concorde disaster. You have no way of knowing what's happened. A small fuel leak in the fan cowl that's lit up will be put out by the engine extinguishers, but your fire warning system cannot tell you that's all that's happened. It may be an uncontained failure of the turbine section; the engine cowls now have huge holes in them, burning fuel is now spreading over the wing, nothing's going to put that out. If you're a minute from landing, going around seems like madness!

A bit implausible for the instructor to throw that in - if your within 1 or 2 minutes of landing, hopefully ATC won't be lining up traffic ahead of you.

I'm with you - I would have continued to land, in much the same vein as if the Captain had a heart attack at 6 miles I too would continue, the mentality being the sooner you are on the ground the better! Just call the Mayday with ATC and TELL THEM what you are doing.

Yep, agreed.

Even the idea to handle the fire only on ground is not the vey best, notwithstanding the bs your instructor told you.

A fire is probably the biggest threat in flight. It has to be dealt with instantly. Therefore most manufacturers have proposed memory items, typically throttles idle, fuel shutoffs off, fire handles pull and rotate.
This mitigates the instant threat, but does not guarantee complete extinction.
As a skipper you should therefore declare emergency and land as freaking early as possible.

Most OMAs tell you that in an emergency situation you should take any measure deemed necessary as to ensure safe flight. This contains telling ATC that you WILL land now, because YOU are running the show, and it also contains to tell the instructor to try to regain some common sense.

I agree, land ASAP and let the fire guys have some fun.

Sounds like someone sitting in the back was trying to be a smart arse. They failed.

There seem to be a few TRE's out there that like to throw that one in.

Everyone I know has always continued to land after declaring a mayday if they had time before landing.

And they have always taken great pleasure afterwards in debriefing that they did it wrong even when the fire bell went at 200ft.

Seems daft to me because they want TOGA power on both until you reach acceleration alt which is just potentially chucking more fuel on the fire in my book and getting all the gasses in the hot section hotter. So if it was just a gas leak on my type you have just tripled the amount of gas going through and got the egt up from 320 up to 640 degs.

Mind you I have had a injector pipe come off spraying fuel all over the hot section and it never caught thankfully. Just a drop in torque/egt in flight when it happened and loads of white smoke coming out of every hole in the cowls when we shut down on the ground.

In most circumstances with a FIRE on final approach it is wise to continue to land, declare emergency if you can, stop on runway and complete checklist actions/handle situation as appropriate. However, the exact point where you changeover from completing the airborne checklist to concentrating on the landing first is down to Airmanship/complexity of the aircraft/circumstances. This is another situation you can best consider as a development of your skills. Cheers

Doesn't 'LAND ASAP" mean something?

I agree, land the aircraft...deal with the fire on the ground...
The aircraft may be able to fly under the circumstances mentioned however if the fire becomes uncontrollable....what then?
What about the increased workload, as you fly the GA trying to resolve issues of engire fire?
All these are threats and by going around you're simply increasing them.
In the controlled world of the sim, thats fine..but in real life....LAND!!

Your damned if you do, your damned if you don't.

Tell ATC you are landing they have 1 min and 30 secs to clear the runway, you carry out memory items.
Stick it on the runway and steer onto the grass if necessary!

Rather than TOGA and take a flaming engine into the air. As you don't know what is wrong with the engine or where the flames are coming out from.

I don't think that the AIB would be able to criticise no matter what you did...as long as you do something.

So your instructor wants you to NOT land an aircraft with a fire of unknown size at an airport that WILL have extensive Fire Fighting capabilities because when you evacuate a few pax may end up with sprains and possibly a couple of breaks in order to throttle up, increase eng temp, increase EGT, increase fuel flow, take you away from the safety of the airport where Pax will have NO opportunity to escape in order to attempt to put out the Eng fire using equipment that MAY extinguish the fire but more than likely will be overwhelmed if the fire is anything more than a minor, contained burn which, if it fails, could well end up with all Pax deceased if the fire penetrates the wing or fuselage tanks prior to your return to airport unless you try a field landing which would also end up with more serious Pax and crew injuries....

Because that makes sense...

fire on final
 

I would have landed!!
and IMHO a sim session must be a learning experience and throwing at you an engine fire on final while you are vmc and then making you go around because a vehicle has entered the runway, that is playing God, i would love to put that instructor of yours on the left seat, presenting him with the same scenario and then once he has gone around making him realize that the fire was uncontained and that now the wing is falling off or that now you haave lost all your hydraulics!!!
remember people that we are paying for those sim sessions, at least our companies are, and we dont have to be at the mercy of some frustrated TRE's that just to prove a point, to show that they have something to teach, they come up with unrealistic scenarios.
having said that my full respect goes to all those great instructors that take their job seriously and do strive to teach something that we can translate into practice, who are the vast mojority outthere.

baobab72

Not a pilot but what am I missing that would require immediate evacuation if you landed and then dealt with engine fire instead of dealing with it in the air?
All I could think of is that at the fire supression might be more effective with air flow but that feels like a stretch.

100% aim for the rwy and LND

If possible eng fire mem items, ECAM actions or whatever ur type calls for

Jammed Stab, did you declare an emergency and or inform ATC of your situation?

I tend to agree with what your did. Fire on final- land ASAP. I suppose you could have the PNF make a quick radio call "Fire on board, unable to GA. Landing runway 23". That way, ATC wouldn't put you in a situation where you needed to GA.

A similar thought occurred to me last time I went to Atlanta. We were ~3nm on final when they had a 757 cross the runway. What would have happened if the 757 got stuck on the runway and I was unable to GA?

So glad to see common sense here amongst the "heavy" pilots.

The phrase " Land ASAP" came to mind reading first post, then another pilot calls that to our attention.

I realize that at 2 or 3 miles out the tower could have to respond very quickly. But that's still a minute or minute and a half to have the runway cleared. And I am sure that any Captain on/near the runway would expedite things.

It's a contrived situation, IMHO.

In my own experience, the tower bugged me about an airliner on long final as I turned base leg with no motor running and wingie had to remind tower I couldn't go around - 1968. Second one was 15 years later and had severe stuctural damage. Had declared emergency 10 - 15 minutes before. Nevertheless, on base leg tower advises about a C-141 on final. GASP!!! I had to tell them I had my hands full and was gonna land ASAP. The box you see in the HUD at left is my radar locking on but the tgt is off the field of view, so box with "x". Had entire right leading edge flap folded up at about 60 degrees. Other than that, a pleasant day!!

http://www.sluf.org/warbirds/lef-landing.m4v

I salute the professional pilots here for unaminous concurrence about landing ASAP!!