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Fire warnings - an intellectual debate on this contentious subject

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Fire warnings - an intellectual debate on this contentious subject

Old 4th Jan 2016, 20:53
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Weren't an Engine Fire....but when the backs of my Hands bubbled up and burst....that convinced me the fire was far more serious than I had first thought.

That we were IMC over mountains (pre GPS Moving Map ) with some decidedly unfriendly locals...whence the Fire... also played into the decision making.

When you experience a Fire for real...no matter what kind....it is far different than Tea Room Stories and Sim Training experiences....It is REAL and not just philosophical.

That is when you have to slow down, focus your thinking, and make good sound decisions after properly considering all the evidence.

The Bournemouth crew's experience demonstrates that in a very clear manner.

That and everything does not conveniently follow the Check List sequence and fit nicely into the boxes.
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Old 5th Jan 2016, 00:26
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It was a dark and stormy night.....................that's exactly what it was, flying out of Bergen after midnight on a three stop shuttle, with ARAs to each deck on minima and no discernible horizon. The third deck was a semi-sub and the wind dictated that it was to be my landing and take-off. For my poor SFO, who was very competent, there was nothing to see outside until we were within the helideck circle.


Our S61 could not be accommodated in the company hangar at Bergen and had suffered several spurious electrical warnings as a consequence of being rained on almost constantly almost every day for a couple of weeks.


I briefed for the final take-off from the semi-sub for the return flight to Bergen, lifted and on rotation was immediately on instruments. Within a second or so of having called "committed", the SFO called "Fire engine one" and I heard the audio warning. Instantly he reached for SSL1 and asked if I wanted it retarded, while I was concentrating on getting a heavy S61 to register a convincing rate of climb on two engines while accelerating slowly through about 50 knots.


Mindful of the large waves just discernible in the landing light beams and having significant doubts about the believability of the fire warning system, I opted to instruct my excellent SFO to leave the SSLs forward and suspend the EOP until we'd passed 500' rad alt. Sure enough, within seconds and as we were passing Vy, the fire warning lights started to fade.


Once checks were completed and the aircraft secured, we reviewed what had just happened and agreed that damp electrics was the most likely cause. An uneventful flight was continued to Bergen, followed by appropriate tech log entries and report writing.


Not my first engine fire warning in flight, but the most dramatic. The others were attributable to hot gas leaks. Never had a real engine fire in a long career and on balance I would think that it's nearly always better to check for visible signs before proceeding through the EOPs.
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Old 5th Jan 2016, 01:39
  #43 (permalink)  
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Colibri

Thanks Calibri, more tales like that please. I just want a realistic approach to this problem.

Whilst discussing it with colleagues who have a fixed wing background they had an interesting take on the situation. They said they would do exactly as I would and NOT immediately descend into the mountains with the FIRE WARNING light still on. However their interpretation of LAND IMMEDIATELY was to proceed to the nearest airport where a safe instrument (or VMC) approach could be made. In my book that amounts to LAND AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. Either way it's the right answer as far as I am concerned.

Unfortunately I know from my SFI experiences that there are pilots out there that believe the QRH/ECL is 'god' and must be obeyed so those guys WILL take on the immediate descent unless the advice given is amplified.

Your experiences that night bring to mind our other outstanding debate about launching into what is effectively IMC below the Vmini which if my memory serves me well is 50 knots in the S61. How have we managed that all these years without some kind of written authority?

G.
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Old 5th Jan 2016, 04:01
  #44 (permalink)  
 
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Another interesting false indication

While flying a S70 (BlackHawk) over the Grose valley in the 90's fighting Bush fires west of Sydney, about 500AGL in amongst the orange filtered light produced by the smoke. Admiring the very tall flame fronts exploding from the the superheated Eucalypt bush below, the #2 Eng Fire light illuminated……Just what you really don't want to see at that point.

The Grose Valley being very rugged and absolutely no place to even look like landing ASAP. The immediate actions taught back then and I would recommend where possible on any type ..particularly if the FIre detection system is an Infra Red based system as it was in the BlackHawk, was to immediately turn in the direction of the indicating engine, get the crewmen (which we normally carried) to check for any visible smoke and/or other confirming indications by looking/leaning out.

The action of the turn thankfully removed the spurious ray of sunshine which had come through gaps in the engine cowl and with the added effect of the orange filtered light caused the infra red fire detector to illuminate the Fire warning system for that engine……..there was no fire. There was no gas leak….except from my rear end at the time

Once the turn had commenced, the sunshine was removed from the detector elements and the indication ceased….thankfully..

So pay heed to the TYPE of fire detection that you have installed and understand how it works a little better is one of the fundamental ways in better handling an actual Fire Indication situation. It better enables selection on the best course of action for any given set of circumstances…whether environmental factors (rain/smoke/electrical) which may effect possible indications and/or the added risk of making your current situation a whole lot worse by blindly following a check list when you simply don't have enough power to safely continue flight in your current situation on one engine.

Perhaps this is what you should be concentrating on when teaching Engine Fire situations….There is rarely a "Text Book" scenario in real life. The "text book" fire drill if for teaching basic fire drill responses….ab initio type endorsement stuff. The next stage should be creative reproductions of real events experienced through that aircraft type. I guess this is limited to the quality of Sim instructor and his experience or syllabus of training that he has been given to operate to in that Sim

A little more understanding of the systems, how they work, how they don't work and common problems unique to individual aircraft models.

And then teach real Risk Assessment…..(I fear not the B/S being touted through aviation at the moment). Believing if we fill in a tick and flick check sheet some 30-60min before flight, that will make us all nice and safe is living in a fools paradise.

Risk Assessment is an ongoing process which changes from minute to minute and cannot possibly be captured in a check sheet…..

Risk Assessment should be being performed every minute of the day by every individual….That is why you aircraft Captains are paid the "big Bucks'. To provide effective, real time, on-going risk assessment to keep both himself and his aircraft safe. By default, if both those elements are kept safe, then everyone else (Pax/Crew) has a very high probability of being kept safe as well….not too many sane Captains have a death wish.

This should be fundamental in Simulator training….developing a Real time, situational based Risk Assessment Mentality. It is the best place for this type of training as so many different scenarios can be created and presented.


My two bob's worth…I hope it makes sense...

RG
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Old 5th Jan 2016, 05:00
  #45 (permalink)  
 
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Thank you Ring Gear

.... for reminding me of a old Bell 204/205 trick (haven't flown those for about a 100 years)

These aircraft also have the infrared fire detectors. When flying early morning or late evening when the sun is low and shining from the left or right rear quarter you can get a false fire indication.

If the springs are bit worn the step covers in the engine cowls deflect inward allowing the sunlight to shine through and trigger the indicator.

If you can turn 90 degrees and fire light goes out that's the likely cause.

And I absolutely agree there is a time to chuck the checklist and use your head. A delaminated main blade on a 212 taught me that. There was major damage to the aircraft from the shaking but we did manage to get her on the ground right side up.

My rule for dealing with stuff that ain't in the checklist goes like this:

(1) Do something.
(2) If that makes it worse - stop doin' it.
(3) Try something else.
(4) If that makes it better - keep doin' it.
(5) If nothing you have tried works - keep trying new stuff until you hit the ground.

Last edited by oleary; 5th Jan 2016 at 05:11.
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Old 5th Jan 2016, 18:29
  #46 (permalink)  
 
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In my few years of flying I had numerous engine fire warnings. The only genuine one I had was in a Bell 212 offshore Port Said on Bastille day in 1982. There was no wind, temperature above 30C and a full load of passengers, so not much power in hand. I had just rotated nose down departing from a drill ship 60 nm offshore when the No 1 engine fire warning illuminated. It became apparent that this was for real when the engine started running down towards idle. The copilot pulled the T-handle and fired the first bottle. The warning light extinguished, but after a short time re-illuminated. The second bottle was fired and the light again extinguished, though we were still less than 20 feet above the sea with airspeed around 20 knots and Nr below 85%. Then, in something like Hoffnung's Bricklayer's story, the No 2 engine chip light illuminated. My copilot , having sent a text-book Mayday call and carried out a perfect set of ECL fire drills, at this stage decided that I was going to ditch (I wasn't), leaned over and pulled the manual float inflation handle. Sadly, our Haskel booster back at base was unserviceable and float bottle pressure was a little low (though I was assured by engineering that there was enough pressure to fully inflate the floats and the floats were only partially inflated) ......... however, I managed to nurse my wonderful 212 up to 1,000 feet and managing to achieve a magnificent 60 knots safely landed at Port Said some 1 hour later with the No 2 chip light still illuminated, having been accompanied for the last 20 miles by the Heli Union Alouette 3 (which had been on the ground undergoing maintenance at the time of our Mayday call).
The lock-nut holding the engine oil tank cap locking plate on had sheared (we found it in the filter) and the locking plate must have vibrated around to the unlocked position and fallen off, allowing engine oil to escape from the tank over the outside of the turbine. There was quite a lot of heat damage from the fire and paint had burned and blistered on the engine and gearbox cowlings. I'm rather glad I didn't have a rear-view mirror as the view may have been somewhat alarming
As one of my 'Newfie' passengers had an illicit bottle of Canadian Club whisky, he poured liberal measures of it into my post-flight coffee and the mix of champagne, ouzo and retsina at the Forasol base manager's Bastille Day party that evening meant that I woke up the following morning with an inexplicably bad headache
When I was a trainer and a sim instructor, I always tried to introduce one or two emergencies which were not covered in the ECL and required the pilots to use their technical knowledge to deal with it (or not, as was sadly too often the case).
I like oleary's rules for dealing with things not in the checklist!

Last edited by soggyboxers; 5th Jan 2016 at 18:41.
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Old 8th Jan 2016, 17:52
  #47 (permalink)  
 
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Thanks for the compliments on the CHC ECL.

I can recall one real engine fire on a 332L a number of years ago in Aberdeen (it wasn't me). Fire warning just after TDP on a maintenance check flight post engine maintenance. Casual glance in the mirror, which showed significant flames coming out of the starboard engine cowling. Fire drill followed by rapid return to land. The airframe had significant damage below the engine bay including melted aluminium. I think the cause was a loose fuel pipe union on the FCU.
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Old 9th Jan 2016, 04:42
  #48 (permalink)  
 
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I have a similar story to Colibri49. Flying a very heavy S61 in Thailand at +30C so any of you know who flew the old girl knows that means single engine performance was lets say, less than spectacular.

Offshore enroute to a jack-up the Fire Light came on. So I was faced with 2 choices, follow the ECL drill and attempt to make my onshore alternate at maybe 60kts and 500' or delay the shutdown, continue the extra 5 miles to the deck and land AEO. I had the flight attendant check for any signs of smoke/heat/fire in the cabin, checked in the gratefully installed rear view mirrors and having considerable time in the old girl and knowing and having experienced more than one false fire indication, I decided that the risk of flying 90 miles OEI outweighed the risk of 5 miles with a fire light. An uneventful landing on the rig and subsequent discovery of a pinched fire detection wire followed.

What I did at the time was contrary to the ECL, as at that time there was no provision to "check for secondary, or confirm the fire" By chance I was the Type Tech pilot for the 61 at the time so I added that to ECL at the next revision.

I should add that today, in the 139 with its helium vs the 2 wire organic salts detector and the OEI performance my decision would be different as to shutting the engine down. Now ditching without confirmation is another matter.

Last edited by Outwest; 9th Jan 2016 at 05:15.
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Old 9th Jan 2016, 08:55
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Outwest;

One of the other great bits of the S61 system was that in the event of a real fire the lights and aural warnings came on faintly to start with and then got brighter and louder. A hot gas leak, or a fire wire which an engineer had trodden on brought the whole on very quickly. The one real engine fire I've had was on a S61, as the lights got brighter and the lady started to shout the oil temps and pressures were going round the clocks, but the engine was making real sounds of distress. A look in the mirrror confirmed the worst (There was an awful lot of smoke) so it was shut down, fire the bottle and RTB. The first bottle coupled with the FRC shut down drills worked perfectly, unlike in this case; https://assets.digital.cabinet-offic...990_G-BEID.pdf

I spend half my time now on the S76 and cannot get an answer from anybody as to why after firing the first bottle you only wait 10 seconds before firing the second. It just doesn't seem enough time to ensure the first bottle has had time to work.

SND
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Old 9th Jan 2016, 09:21
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Yes, that was a good thing about the 61 system, unfortunately in my incident I was the PNF and the PF was an inexperienced FO. I had my head down doing paper work and when I looked up and seen the light the first thing I said to the PF was " how long has that light been on?" He had no idea, never noticed it
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Old 9th Jan 2016, 12:13
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This thread is very interesting esp Colibri's posting. I just came out from a heated debate at a meeting. One of the points in our take off brief (on the EC225 LP) was "No engines to be secured below 500 ft except in the event of engine fire ". My point of argument is that in a powerful machine on AEO we reach 500 ft in about 40 seconds from rotation. It will be better to handle the fire after 500 ft and at Vy rather than tackling the fire and trying to fly away on OEI. I think this is what sensible pilots will do but there are some I beleive that will not hestate to carry out the fire drill at below 500 ft on take off. I had recommended that the phrase "except in the event of fire " to be deleted.

Sadly I was shot down in the meeting!
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Old 9th Jan 2016, 12:33
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gnow;

Our standard brief is no emergencies to be dealt with below 1000' except for double engine failure or a fire. fire is dealt with above 500' with AP on heading and a suitable single engine ROC set with 1000' above MSA selected.

I've watched an engine fire dealt with perfectly (in the sim) followed by CFIT into a nearby mountain as no-one was actually flying the beast, and an engine fire below 1000' on a hand flown ILS to minima (different crew, same sim) where the ILS went way out of full scale on LOC and GS and the crew ended up going round with the warnings still going, eventually they sorted it but it was messy. There are times when ignoring the warning and ensuring that you are safe to deal with the problem are far more important. The crew who flew the go-round were about 55 seconds from touchdown and ended up flying another ten mins over poor terrain, single engine and having to hand fly another approach to a very high degree of accuracy.

Before anyone shouts about hand flying it was a S61 which only had SAS and no auto-pilot, at least these days I've got AP as well.

SND
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Old 9th Jan 2016, 12:47
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55 Seconds from Touchdown on an ILS.....are you guaranteed to break out and land?

If at the Standard DH....insufficient visual cues were not present would you (a) continue the Approach until you either saw enough runway to land or had to make a late Missed Approach Procedure or (b) executed a Standard Missed Approach and deal with the Fire situation during the Climb Out?

I consider having a real Fire an Emergency Situation thus there is nothing "normal" about that....and as the PIC....I have certain discretions available when it comes to my decision making.
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Old 9th Jan 2016, 13:18
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Angry

I know I am right in my reasoning but I have to try very hard to "sell " my idea to the rest of my comrades!!!
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Old 9th Jan 2016, 13:19
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SAS;

If it was me for real, my concentration would be on the get down bit. If the weather is overcast at 200' then frankly that is our national minima, and lights will be visible at 200' if it is overcast. A call to ATC to let them know by the PM what is happening and then sheer bloody concentration to keep the needles crossed I believe are more required than hands and eyes checking the right lever is being pulled. I would never criticise a pilot for continuing. Here in EASA land the visual clues required at DA are "elements of the approach lighting system" As someone once told me each light in an approach lighting system has two elements, therefore at DA if I can see one light I can see elements......................

SND
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Old 9th Jan 2016, 13:57
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Absolutely....if you are only 30-60 seconds from landing....that would beat the other Option by far.

In this day of fancy autopilot systems....I would imagine George could be convinced to get you down to 50 feet and 60 Knots dead smack on the centerline.

The weather would have to be awfully bad to prevent a landing from that point.
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Old 9th Jan 2016, 14:20
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SAS;

My thinking entirely

SND
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Old 9th Jan 2016, 18:34
  #58 (permalink)  

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About 15 or 16 years ago an AS355 operating in the police role suffered an engine fire caption at night while returning to the base airport. The pilot followed the emergency checklist which included shutting down the affected engine and operating the first fire bottle. This was all done, "i.a.w".

The fire caption did not go out so the second bottle was used. The fire warning light still did not go out. The crew also experienced smoke and fumes in the cockpit so the pilot elected to carry out an OEI landing short of the airport, in a field.

Thankfully, no damage was done to the airframe or its occupants. It proved to be a false engine fire warning but the smoke and fumes were real enough! They came about because of an unusual and misunderstood item in the RFM/checklist, which was a translation from French. The note stated that the fire extinguisher buttons should be "unlatched" after being operated. There was no further explanation given. I was flying the type at the time this occurred (my first job flying it) and I had previously asked our trainers what this meant, but no meaningful explanation was forthcoming.

What actually happens when the FIRE button is pressed is that a squib operates electrically, via a control circuit board, to release a sealing cap which normally holds back the extinguishant. The fire button/switch (a "STACO" type), is not of the perhaps more widely used type. Most others are a simple spring loaded button which pops out again when released.

However, these particular fire bottle buttons are held in the "IN/energised" position by an internal latching mechanism. The button has to be pressed again to release the latch.

Now, as the squib fires, the small filament inside is designed to burn through, giving an open circuit once it's done its job. However, experience showed that in some cases, the squib fired but the element did not burn through. If this occurred, as it did in this case, the circuit board would overheat, giving smoke and fumes in the cockpit (it's by the pilot's left knee, in the centre console)!

So, a spurious engine fire warning can result in the crew inducing a real, but small, cockpit fire. Just what you want, especially at night..

After the investigation, the CAA recommended that Eurocopter undertook to replace the fire bottle switches with a non-latching type (straight swap and presumably not expensive). They refused, saying that the incident was a false warning! The CAA did not follow this up so those buttons are probably still out there.
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Old 9th Jan 2016, 21:02
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Originally Posted by gnow
I know I am right in my reasoning but I have to try very hard to "sell " my idea to the rest of my comrades!!!
gnow,

Have another read of this accident report that was posted earlier (S61, vicinity Bournemouth UK, 2002 (AW FIRE) - SKYbrary Aviation Safety) and consider if you would be happy to have a potential fire burning away for 40 seconds.
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Old 10th Jan 2016, 09:44
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Gnow,

Your SOPs are trying to keep things simple, but there is a danger in classifying events purely in terms of 2 options: " if there is a fire, do X,, if no fire, do Y." If you experience a straightforward flameout, then generally it will be safer to not touch anything below 500'. If you have something more catastrophic, (which could include fire, driveshaft failures, runaway up, turbine separations, etc,) then it MAY be prudent to take some action below 500'. I am guessing your SOPs do not mandate action below 500', in the event of fire, they just don't forbid it! That is the decision the captain gets paid for!
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