Tackling Engine Fire After Take Off in Multi Engine Heli
Crab
You must read people's post properly and not try and quote posters with what you think they said.
I never said SOPs were the ONLY option. In post 61 I described how we operate in the NS - it is not a the low level environment you are used to. In post 77 I said quite clearly
Below I quote the fire drill for a 365N2
You will, I hope, see from the drill that after lifting off from a 200ft helideck you will be at 500ft by the time you complete the drill. I doubt any Captain would still climb past 500ft with an firelight on.
I look forward to TC scoring the reply
HF
You must read people's post properly and not try and quote posters with what you think they said.
HF - you seem you want to have your cake and eat it - either SOPs are the only options
It is never the only option but it is the basis for what ever the Captain does
ENGINE BAY FIRE IN FLIGHT
Indications: FIRE
1. Engine IDENTIFY
2. NG REDUCE TO ABOUT 85%
3. Airspeed REDUCE TOWARDS 80 KIAS
4. Signs Of Fire CHECK
5. Affected Engine Red Handle CLOSE
6. Affected Engine Yellow Handle CLOSE
7. Heating OFF
8. Affected Engine Boost Pumps OFF
9. First Fire Extinguisher OPERATE BELOW 80 KIAS
10. EXT RH or EXT LH CONFIRM ON
11. Radio MAYDAY CALL
If fire persists (1 minute after item 9):
9. Second Fire Extinguisher OPERATE
10. EXT RH or EXT LH CONFIRM ON
If fire warning persists and other signs of fire:
11. LAND IMMEDIATELY
If fire extinguished or warning persists but no other indications of fire:
12. LAND AS SOON AS POSSIBLE
If signs of fire subsequently appear:
13. LAND IMMEDIATELY
Indications: FIRE
1. Engine IDENTIFY
2. NG REDUCE TO ABOUT 85%
3. Airspeed REDUCE TOWARDS 80 KIAS
4. Signs Of Fire CHECK
5. Affected Engine Red Handle CLOSE
6. Affected Engine Yellow Handle CLOSE
7. Heating OFF
8. Affected Engine Boost Pumps OFF
9. First Fire Extinguisher OPERATE BELOW 80 KIAS
10. EXT RH or EXT LH CONFIRM ON
11. Radio MAYDAY CALL
If fire persists (1 minute after item 9):
9. Second Fire Extinguisher OPERATE
10. EXT RH or EXT LH CONFIRM ON
If fire warning persists and other signs of fire:
11. LAND IMMEDIATELY
If fire extinguished or warning persists but no other indications of fire:
12. LAND AS SOON AS POSSIBLE
If signs of fire subsequently appear:
13. LAND IMMEDIATELY
I look forward to TC scoring the reply
HF
HF: My serve:
The FRC's would be used AFTER you had secured safe flight and NOT before. So everything on the checklist you showed is read when you are above SES and at a SAFE HEIGHT / HDG.
Then you tell the NFP to 'out cards'.
For some a/c a suspect fire is an immediate action and must be recalled from memory without reference to flip cards, I take it with your a/c you use FRC's.
To do this in my defence, I have now to be pedantic.(ie: pick the moment my fire light came on).
So:
ASSUME you have come off the rig in the climb and the fire caption illuminates shortly thereafter, I would 'hear' the SOP's calling, but I would LEVEL the a/c at whatever height I was at, at the time of the fire, establish min pwr speed and ensure ht/spd/hdg was appropriate before moving onto fighting the fire. I most certainly would NOT continue pulling power and climbing.
Obviously if the light came on minutes after t/o, I may well be at 500' by then and so, would level off to move onto the FRC's ASAP. Assuming the NFP was competent and capable of fighting the fire at this stage, I would fly the a/c down hill to a more appropriate height (how you do that in your a/c is your decision. But I would back up the descent with some sort of ht hold. I would be striving for around >200' to bring the FRC's to a conclusion before deciding what to do next.
New balls
The FRC's would be used AFTER you had secured safe flight and NOT before. So everything on the checklist you showed is read when you are above SES and at a SAFE HEIGHT / HDG.
Then you tell the NFP to 'out cards'.
For some a/c a suspect fire is an immediate action and must be recalled from memory without reference to flip cards, I take it with your a/c you use FRC's.
To do this in my defence, I have now to be pedantic.(ie: pick the moment my fire light came on).
So:
ASSUME you have come off the rig in the climb and the fire caption illuminates shortly thereafter, I would 'hear' the SOP's calling, but I would LEVEL the a/c at whatever height I was at, at the time of the fire, establish min pwr speed and ensure ht/spd/hdg was appropriate before moving onto fighting the fire. I most certainly would NOT continue pulling power and climbing.
Obviously if the light came on minutes after t/o, I may well be at 500' by then and so, would level off to move onto the FRC's ASAP. Assuming the NFP was competent and capable of fighting the fire at this stage, I would fly the a/c down hill to a more appropriate height (how you do that in your a/c is your decision. But I would back up the descent with some sort of ht hold. I would be striving for around >200' to bring the FRC's to a conclusion before deciding what to do next.
New balls
If fire persists (1 minute after item9)
HF - how long do you think it will take you to land immediately from 500'?
You have got to set up a safe, single engined ditching and that will take time from 100' or 200' - significantly longer I think from 500', especially if you have gone IMC whilst following your SOP!
You have got to set up a safe, single engined ditching and that will take time from 100' or 200' - significantly longer I think from 500', especially if you have gone IMC whilst following your SOP!
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Another little joy about engine fire warnings, spurious ones tend to bring the light straight on, real ones it glows dimly and gets brighter. I used to fly one aircraft where the lights were on when you switched on the batteries and went out when you started the engines! (that was a very smoky old 355) IIRC the S61 system was a wire full of a really poisonous substance (cyanide?) which regularly gave false warnings if someone had been careless on the A check, the 332 had bi-metalic sensors which became weak with age, as for the 76 I can't remember, I had a few spurious warnings over the years until the day, on a go round, when there was a nasty high speed vibration, followed by a humungous bang and no 1 stopped. the fire warning took some time to come on, but needed both bottles, by that time we were at VTOSS, climbing nicely away from some very tall platforms, towards MSA and had loads of time to sort the problem. The P2 was able to confirm the fire in his mirror and we both said afterwards how much like a drill it had been.
If the warning had not gone out after the second bottle we would have gone into the water, which would have been hard work as the go-round had been caused by low clouds, poor viz. If we had held the height at 50-100' to sort the problem we would have been flying towards a lot of much higher structures, with one pilot concentrating on low flying while the other did the drills without much confimation from PF.
There was a long discussion in the crew room about this at the time and one guy was very aggressive in his opinion that the engine shut down drills should have been done before anything else. A couple of months later he flew into the hill west ABZ while executing a perfect engine shutdown and not flying the beast, luckily for him the TRE could re-set the sim and send him off again.
SOPs are for the protection of all, but certainly with that company a captain was allowed to deviate from them if he believed his actions were were the safer route.
If the warning had not gone out after the second bottle we would have gone into the water, which would have been hard work as the go-round had been caused by low clouds, poor viz. If we had held the height at 50-100' to sort the problem we would have been flying towards a lot of much higher structures, with one pilot concentrating on low flying while the other did the drills without much confimation from PF.
There was a long discussion in the crew room about this at the time and one guy was very aggressive in his opinion that the engine shut down drills should have been done before anything else. A couple of months later he flew into the hill west ABZ while executing a perfect engine shutdown and not flying the beast, luckily for him the TRE could re-set the sim and send him off again.
SOPs are for the protection of all, but certainly with that company a captain was allowed to deviate from them if he believed his actions were were the safer route.
Why wait at all to fire the second bottle....surely if one is good...two are twice as good!
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In my limited career as a TRE for a couple offshore operators, I tried to follow a simple set of rules for assessing the SOP/regulation adherance by propective captains:
1. Did he know the rule (SOP, etc)?
2. Did he know he broke it? And why?
3. Did he understand the consequences?
This long drawn out argument, that I have read with much interest, has highlighted the fact that it is impossible to write a regulation or SOP for every occassion. Hence, at some point, a pilot will need to use their judgement.
I would like to point out that not all over-water flights are in the North Sea, in a Sea King or a 225. Not all multi-engine a/c fly over water either. Even in that limited scope the environment can be much more unpredictable than most of the airline flying that so many seem to be aspiring to (airports don't move around for instance). Writing an SOP also must take into account who is going to be following it (skill, experience, language) as well as varying conditions.
I must admit that I have not been a pillar of SOP adherance over my flying career, but I have made it a point to know them intimately and to try very hard to research 'why' they were written the way they were, then to back them up with the Air Law and the RFM and anything else I could get my hands on.
They are a great tool for keeping both crew members (or more) on the same page and for getting a head start on solving a situation or problem. I also believe that when SOP's seem to be getting the way of the operation, rather than helping, we need to start asking pointed questions.
Bringing Cougar 491 up is a sore point with me. I see far too much armchair quarterbacking on Pprune by people who have either not been there, or fail to mentally put themselves there when they read the reports.
It isn't easy to make the decision to deliberately turn off the engine(s) or to write off a helicopter unless mentally well prepared for it in advance.
1. Did he know the rule (SOP, etc)?
2. Did he know he broke it? And why?
3. Did he understand the consequences?
This long drawn out argument, that I have read with much interest, has highlighted the fact that it is impossible to write a regulation or SOP for every occassion. Hence, at some point, a pilot will need to use their judgement.
I would like to point out that not all over-water flights are in the North Sea, in a Sea King or a 225. Not all multi-engine a/c fly over water either. Even in that limited scope the environment can be much more unpredictable than most of the airline flying that so many seem to be aspiring to (airports don't move around for instance). Writing an SOP also must take into account who is going to be following it (skill, experience, language) as well as varying conditions.
I must admit that I have not been a pillar of SOP adherance over my flying career, but I have made it a point to know them intimately and to try very hard to research 'why' they were written the way they were, then to back them up with the Air Law and the RFM and anything else I could get my hands on.
They are a great tool for keeping both crew members (or more) on the same page and for getting a head start on solving a situation or problem. I also believe that when SOP's seem to be getting the way of the operation, rather than helping, we need to start asking pointed questions.
Bringing Cougar 491 up is a sore point with me. I see far too much armchair quarterbacking on Pprune by people who have either not been there, or fail to mentally put themselves there when they read the reports.
It isn't easy to make the decision to deliberately turn off the engine(s) or to write off a helicopter unless mentally well prepared for it in advance.
Well said.
As to the Cougar crash.....as tragic as it was....it has proven to be beneficial in evoking a meaningful professional discussion about several topics and issues. The vast majority of folks here garnered some excellent input as a result of those discussions and if there is some good side to what happened....this may be it.
That event proves the wisdom of what you say about one shoe not fitting every foot and that when bad things happen....Pilots shall have to exercise their judgement and make decisions....oft times some very hard decisions and not have very much time to dwell upon them.
That is where good SOP's, excellent training, a good operational environment, and crew coordination combined with experience will hopefully lead to a good outcome.
When it does not, especially when it does not, then we need to very closely examine what happened, what went wrong, why it went wrong, and see if we can learn from that.
What is the real tragedy in these events is the price we pay to have something to study.....but then that makes the information that is gleaned all the more valuable as hopefully we do not have to pay for that particular bit of knowledge another time.
As to the Cougar crash.....as tragic as it was....it has proven to be beneficial in evoking a meaningful professional discussion about several topics and issues. The vast majority of folks here garnered some excellent input as a result of those discussions and if there is some good side to what happened....this may be it.
That event proves the wisdom of what you say about one shoe not fitting every foot and that when bad things happen....Pilots shall have to exercise their judgement and make decisions....oft times some very hard decisions and not have very much time to dwell upon them.
That is where good SOP's, excellent training, a good operational environment, and crew coordination combined with experience will hopefully lead to a good outcome.
When it does not, especially when it does not, then we need to very closely examine what happened, what went wrong, why it went wrong, and see if we can learn from that.
What is the real tragedy in these events is the price we pay to have something to study.....but then that makes the information that is gleaned all the more valuable as hopefully we do not have to pay for that particular bit of knowledge another time.
Again TC you have commented on what you think happens against what actually happens
The following explanation should produce your willingness to concede the game
ITEMS 1 TO 11 on the checklist I quoted are from memory so no cards are used. There is also a caveat in the SOPs/checklist which says:-
So while 500ft is generally used as a safe height to sort out an emergency, and avoid bumping into the many rigs there are in the NS it is not the height we start sorting out the emergency.
Crab
You seem to have it in your head that we always climb to 500ft, not true see above as for time probably less than 1 min at say 700ft/min ROD, flare land on water!
SASLESS
Not entirely true the a/c firebottles are certified to fill the void around the engine to such an extent as to deprive the fire of oxygen. The other firebottle used is the second engines so if you use that too quickly you are getting no benefit while depriving your self of fire cover on that engine.
I am now bored with explaining NS procedures to those who think they know how we operate TC + Crab. Off to start Xmas celebrations
Everybody have a safe Xmas and do follow the SOPs but above all be a CAPTAIN
HF
HF: My serve:
The FRC's would be used AFTER you had secured safe flight and NOT before. So everything on the checklist you showed is read when you are above SES and at a SAFE HEIGHT / HDG.
Then you tell the NFP to 'out cards'.
The FRC's would be used AFTER you had secured safe flight and NOT before. So everything on the checklist you showed is read when you are above SES and at a SAFE HEIGHT / HDG.
Then you tell the NFP to 'out cards'.
ITEMS 1 TO 11 on the checklist I quoted are from memory so no cards are used. There is also a caveat in the SOPs/checklist which says:-
NOTE: Engine or fuel controls should not be moved in flight below 200 feet agl or when the IAS is less than VY unless there are visual signs of fire (other than the FIRE warning). If rejecting before TDP, there are no PNF actions until the aircraft has come to a stop on the ground.
Crab
HF - how long do you think it will take you to land immediately from 500'?
SASLESS
Why wait at all to fire the second bottle....surely if one is good...two are twice as good
I am now bored with explaining NS procedures to those who think they know how we operate TC + Crab. Off to start Xmas celebrations
Everybody have a safe Xmas and do follow the SOPs but above all be a CAPTAIN
HF
We don't cruise at heights less than 500 feet AGL when things are low stress and normal. Why would we then do it during high stress situations?
Some have even advocated that during night and/or bad weather.
Have we lost sight of the basic rules of thumb we have generated over the many years we have been doing this helicopter flying stuff?
Are not Engine fires in somewhat the same category as Lightning Strikes in frequency of occurrence? Why add other risks unnecessarily?
Accelerate and climb to a safe height....fire both your bottles and then decide what to do then.
If 500 feet is considered minimum safe height during normal operations....why is lower than that safer during an emergency situation?
Some have even advocated that during night and/or bad weather.
Have we lost sight of the basic rules of thumb we have generated over the many years we have been doing this helicopter flying stuff?
Are not Engine fires in somewhat the same category as Lightning Strikes in frequency of occurrence? Why add other risks unnecessarily?
Accelerate and climb to a safe height....fire both your bottles and then decide what to do then.
If 500 feet is considered minimum safe height during normal operations....why is lower than that safer during an emergency situation?
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Hummingfrog & number 2 Eng
Great...after dealing with the first engine fire and using the 1st bottle. Gratuitous use of the second one if you feel so inclined won't be that bad.
SAVING it for the other engine is a waste of time....any problem in that one will see you earth bound just after the T handle is pulled and before your PNF gets a chance to fire the bottle
This will be the reason that Crab and certain other overwater low level operators like the idea of remaining low to deal with the emergency and then when satisfied all's well climbing if needed.
Get your TRE to give you a fire on the next SIM LPC/OPC after the TDP call offshore, tell him you want number 2 to give you a fire just after you fired bottle 1
SAVING it for the other engine is a waste of time....any problem in that one will see you earth bound just after the T handle is pulled and before your PNF gets a chance to fire the bottle
This will be the reason that Crab and certain other overwater low level operators like the idea of remaining low to deal with the emergency and then when satisfied all's well climbing if needed.
Get your TRE to give you a fire on the next SIM LPC/OPC after the TDP call offshore, tell him you want number 2 to give you a fire just after you fired bottle 1
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A fairly standard system knowledge exercise. If one engine is shut down already and you want to fight a fire in the other (to buy a little time) without going into an auto, how do you do it?
I haven't been blessed with a new-fangled 92 or 225 endorsement, but it was a part of every sim trg session I've been on in the last couple decades. Good fun and makes the grey matter work a little harder.
SAS, I agree with everything except firing both bottles together (if that is what you meant). I'd keep the option of a second try in case #1 goes south.
I haven't been blessed with a new-fangled 92 or 225 endorsement, but it was a part of every sim trg session I've been on in the last couple decades. Good fun and makes the grey matter work a little harder.
SAS, I agree with everything except firing both bottles together (if that is what you meant). I'd keep the option of a second try in case #1 goes south.
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http://www.pprune.org/tech-log/50496...ort-final.html
Just to show you that the fixed wing have the same problems.
Thank goodness there arn't more engine fires full stop!
Just to show you that the fixed wing have the same problems.
Thank goodness there arn't more engine fires full stop!
Purveyor of Egg Liqueur to Lucifer
Not a fire as such, but a cracking example of handling an emergency;
