Ek Cargo Fire
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Bus 429,
I very much agree that you want to get down quickly but....
My point was that we don't have all the details here, and, with the warning out, there was a very brief period to assess the bigger picture.
I'm not advocating a governmental discussion
about it, just that they may have had a short period to make a bad situation better.
Happy landings
I very much agree that you want to get down quickly but....
My point was that we don't have all the details here, and, with the warning out, there was a very brief period to assess the bigger picture.
I'm not advocating a governmental discussion
about it, just that they may have had a short period to make a bad situation better.Happy landings
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Why all the interest in a cargo fire?
EK bashing?
Culture of blaming pilots, ASAP?
I'd posit the reason as people wanting to learn more; make better decisions; prepare.....
But that's just the way I see it.
One more thing I see is this:
If you have a fire, any fire, anywhere, on any aircraft, unless you can positively determine that it has been extinguished, you are obliged to get the plane on the ground.
Empirical evidence tells us you have precious few minutes.
If you felt the fire had gone out, well that's another thing; with respect to time at least.
But as Bus 429 - an engineer of considerable experience, has pointed out, there's the issue of damage control.
No-one, no manager, no pilot, no engineer, no dispatcher, even manufacturer, is going to criticise you for erring on the side of safety.
Plenty of pilots in the office will offer, with a sigh, "Oh he need not have diverted, really."
LAND.
If you need further help on this crucial issue, that's understandable.
This is PPRuNe after all.
But let's be clear about what the response to a fire warning would and should be.
EK bashing?
Culture of blaming pilots, ASAP?
I'd posit the reason as people wanting to learn more; make better decisions; prepare.....
But that's just the way I see it.
One more thing I see is this:
If you have a fire, any fire, anywhere, on any aircraft, unless you can positively determine that it has been extinguished, you are obliged to get the plane on the ground.
Empirical evidence tells us you have precious few minutes.
If you felt the fire had gone out, well that's another thing; with respect to time at least.
But as Bus 429 - an engineer of considerable experience, has pointed out, there's the issue of damage control.
No-one, no manager, no pilot, no engineer, no dispatcher, even manufacturer, is going to criticise you for erring on the side of safety.
Plenty of pilots in the office will offer, with a sigh, "Oh he need not have diverted, really."
LAND.
If you need further help on this crucial issue, that's understandable.
This is PPRuNe after all.
But let's be clear about what the response to a fire warning would and should be.
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From Stormcloud:
"Bus 429, 411A, Airbubba et al,
Let me get this right.
You have an engine fire, use the bottle, the light goes out and you do what.........?
By your arguments, stick the nose down and throw it on the nearest piece of tarmac!
I think not."
For example, Stormcloud, the BA SOP requires their crews to do just that. There is no option to say "OK then, it's gone out, let's press on for a while and see what happens".
You get the aeroplane down and the passengers out (via steps if possible) and then talk about it afterwards.
"Bus 429, 411A, Airbubba et al,
Let me get this right.
You have an engine fire, use the bottle, the light goes out and you do what.........?
By your arguments, stick the nose down and throw it on the nearest piece of tarmac!
I think not."
For example, Stormcloud, the BA SOP requires their crews to do just that. There is no option to say "OK then, it's gone out, let's press on for a while and see what happens".
You get the aeroplane down and the passengers out (via steps if possible) and then talk about it afterwards.
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here's the ops controllers view on this-
It is not for an ops controller to tell a captain what to do in any non-normal situation. we will offer help, be the liaison between specialist and crew and even ensure that whatever course of action the captain decides is communicated to the appropriate entity.
Ops blokes are there to ensure that programme disruption is minmised, not to tell a pilot what to do.
Passenger welfare and commercial considerations came after safety
It is not for an ops controller to tell a captain what to do in any non-normal situation. we will offer help, be the liaison between specialist and crew and even ensure that whatever course of action the captain decides is communicated to the appropriate entity.
Ops blokes are there to ensure that programme disruption is minmised, not to tell a pilot what to do.
Passenger welfare and commercial considerations came after safety
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Moggie,
Just a question, interested how you would view these actions.
1. You have an engine fire just after V1 on a nice VMC day at LHR. Get airborne and run the ECAM / EICAS drill and the fire is extinguished. You are overweight so you take the time to take radar vectors around for an ILS whilst running the overweight landing checklist, chatting to the crew and pax. Once you are happy the box is programmed you turn in and land.
2. Same problem but fire 2 bottles and the fire light remains on. You turn visually downwind left hand, call 'Attention Crew at Stations', stick the wheels and flaps out and land.
Nothing wrong from my point of view of using a bit of time, if it is available, to make a decision.
As far as throwing it on the ground immediately!
Lets say you had an in-flight engine fire which extinguished at the first bottle and you had a choice of a poor weather approach into an airfield with horrendous approach climb gradient problems, no radar, a short runway and shocking ATC. (But still technically a 'suitable airport'.
Or, you could get the aircraft on the ground 5-10 minutes later at an airport with the same weather, no big rocks to fly into, a radar, 4000m and a mate that isn't lying to you on the radio.
Surely, irrespective of what is written in the checklist, the pilot has to make a judgement based upon his own unique circumstances.
A couple of minutes spent ensuring that the action he or she is about to take pays dividends in a lot of circumstances. For every Swiss Air incident, there are numerous others where crews jump in, rush decisions and make a bad situation worse.
As LIAJ says this is the PPrumourNE after all. Are we sure that they just couldn't find out whether or not Chennai would be open to them. So whilst sorting the problem they got Ops to square away the folks on the ground rather than getting further away from an airfield that was the best available (if open) and they hoped they would be able to get clearance to land at.
I don't know about you but I can't even make some of the controllers in that part of the world realise what my callsign is. Trying to communicate anything beyond your estimate for the next reporting point can result in total silence and zero help from the ground. Its not quite like London or Maastrict.
Glad everyone was ok
Ghost
Just a question, interested how you would view these actions.
1. You have an engine fire just after V1 on a nice VMC day at LHR. Get airborne and run the ECAM / EICAS drill and the fire is extinguished. You are overweight so you take the time to take radar vectors around for an ILS whilst running the overweight landing checklist, chatting to the crew and pax. Once you are happy the box is programmed you turn in and land.
2. Same problem but fire 2 bottles and the fire light remains on. You turn visually downwind left hand, call 'Attention Crew at Stations', stick the wheels and flaps out and land.
Nothing wrong from my point of view of using a bit of time, if it is available, to make a decision.
As far as throwing it on the ground immediately!
Lets say you had an in-flight engine fire which extinguished at the first bottle and you had a choice of a poor weather approach into an airfield with horrendous approach climb gradient problems, no radar, a short runway and shocking ATC. (But still technically a 'suitable airport'.
Or, you could get the aircraft on the ground 5-10 minutes later at an airport with the same weather, no big rocks to fly into, a radar, 4000m and a mate that isn't lying to you on the radio.
Surely, irrespective of what is written in the checklist, the pilot has to make a judgement based upon his own unique circumstances.
A couple of minutes spent ensuring that the action he or she is about to take pays dividends in a lot of circumstances. For every Swiss Air incident, there are numerous others where crews jump in, rush decisions and make a bad situation worse.
As LIAJ says this is the PPrumourNE after all. Are we sure that they just couldn't find out whether or not Chennai would be open to them. So whilst sorting the problem they got Ops to square away the folks on the ground rather than getting further away from an airfield that was the best available (if open) and they hoped they would be able to get clearance to land at.
I don't know about you but I can't even make some of the controllers in that part of the world realise what my callsign is. Trying to communicate anything beyond your estimate for the next reporting point can result in total silence and zero help from the ground. Its not quite like London or Maastrict.
Glad everyone was ok
Ghost
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Moggie,
Either you have missunderstood me (or me you) or you must be pulling our collective legs here
.
I don't believe BA would have a 744 on 3 engines with the engine fire light out put down on a gravel strip in Canada when it could continue to something a little more user friendly!
Having the light on is, of course, a different situation
Glad everyone was ok.
On a different note, if this was diplomatic baggage that caught fire, what are the security and safety implications of this stuff not being checked like 'normal' baggage in the current climate?
Just what checks are done?
Happy landings
Either you have missunderstood me (or me you) or you must be pulling our collective legs here
.I don't believe BA would have a 744 on 3 engines with the engine fire light out put down on a gravel strip in Canada when it could continue to something a little more user friendly!
Having the light on is, of course, a different situation
Glad everyone was ok.
On a different note, if this was diplomatic baggage that caught fire, what are the security and safety implications of this stuff not being checked like 'normal' baggage in the current climate?
Just what checks are done?
Happy landings
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I always thought that it was better to be down here wishing you were up there than up there and wishing you were down here!!
Lets use the available info to learn from and plan for the future.
I am a tech support guy, and if it was me on the end of the Phone I would be saying land pronto!
Lets use the available info to learn from and plan for the future.
I am a tech support guy, and if it was me on the end of the Phone I would be saying land pronto!
The contrast in styles between the 727 manual and the 777 manual are interesting. From a simple unequivocal instruction in the 727 manual to careful wordsmithing in the 777 manual which tries to say the same thing without actually spelling it out.
That's progress!
That's progress!
The difference between the 727 wording and the 777 wording , is because these two aircraft have different cargo hold types. Hence different capabilities with regards fire containment, detection, and fire fighting. The fire retardent system on the 777 provides protection for 3 or 4 hrs (can not remember the exact number now!). Now this does not mean that they want you to fly for this long, but it is there to give you some options when on that long over water ETOPS sector etc, or when all the airports around you are too short , fogged in or closed.
Because this 777 was dispatched on ETOPS plan, an ETOPS check had to be preformed prior to departure. Part of this check is to ensure that there is no damage to the holds which would lessen there ability to detect, fight or contain a fire. If damage is found, they must be left empty (can carry empty ULDS only) as Boeing now reckon that the system will no longer certified to contain the fire.
Because this 777 was dispatched on ETOPS plan, an ETOPS check had to be preformed prior to departure. Part of this check is to ensure that there is no damage to the holds which would lessen there ability to detect, fight or contain a fire. If damage is found, they must be left empty (can carry empty ULDS only) as Boeing now reckon that the system will no longer certified to contain the fire.
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Ghostflyer and Stormcloud - sorry if I didn't make myself very clear (I was trying to keep it simple for Airbubba!).
The company policy at BA is "any engine failure/fire = land at nearest suitable airport". The company line on that is "look at the nearest airport and go there if it is suitable". However, the crew and aeroplane should (if possible) be fully prepared so as to avoid a rushed approach.
So, in the scenarios Ghostflyer proposes, scenario number one is the ideal but you go for number two if the fire doesn't go out. In Ghostflyers more detailed scenarios, I tend to agree that the second case sounds better - but you have to balance the desire to land an aeroplane that has had a fire ASAP with the need to do it safely somewhere. This is for the crew and the crew alone to decide, in my opinion, bearing in mind the company policy of landing ASAP (which I think is VERY sound advice!).
For Stormcloud - a gravel strip would not normally be regarded as "suitable" - but we were, in fact, discussing "putting it down on the nearest piece of tarmac", not a gravel strip if tarmac is available/reachable/useable. I would further clarify that as the nearest "suitable" piece of tarmac.
The grey area comes with "suitable" and of course that is a question that can only really be answered by the crew in the aeroplane on the day. Weather, runway direction/length, approach aids, crew familiarity, political considerations (do you want to use Baghdad International?), ground services and facilities will all enter the equation and no two scenarios will ever be the same.
I myself have landed an aeroplane that had a double engine failure (we started with 4!) and a big fuel leak at an airport other than the nearest. However, the airport we chose was (in our opinion as the flightdeck crew) the most suitable because: we had just started the descent for that airport, we already knew the weather and had briefed the approach, it was home so we knew the airport inside out, the emergency crews knew our aeroplane inside out (as did the engineers on the ground) and a diversion to the nearest airport would actually have taken longer because of the need to re-plan and we could not spare the fuel.
If we had just reached top of climb and had not already prepared for the approach, then the choice could well have been different.
As yet we do not know what decision making process the crew went through (and probably never will) but I very much doubt that they had any priority higher in their minds than flight safety.
The company policy at BA is "any engine failure/fire = land at nearest suitable airport". The company line on that is "look at the nearest airport and go there if it is suitable". However, the crew and aeroplane should (if possible) be fully prepared so as to avoid a rushed approach.
So, in the scenarios Ghostflyer proposes, scenario number one is the ideal but you go for number two if the fire doesn't go out. In Ghostflyers more detailed scenarios, I tend to agree that the second case sounds better - but you have to balance the desire to land an aeroplane that has had a fire ASAP with the need to do it safely somewhere. This is for the crew and the crew alone to decide, in my opinion, bearing in mind the company policy of landing ASAP (which I think is VERY sound advice!).
For Stormcloud - a gravel strip would not normally be regarded as "suitable" - but we were, in fact, discussing "putting it down on the nearest piece of tarmac", not a gravel strip if tarmac is available/reachable/useable. I would further clarify that as the nearest "suitable" piece of tarmac.
The grey area comes with "suitable" and of course that is a question that can only really be answered by the crew in the aeroplane on the day. Weather, runway direction/length, approach aids, crew familiarity, political considerations (do you want to use Baghdad International?), ground services and facilities will all enter the equation and no two scenarios will ever be the same.
I myself have landed an aeroplane that had a double engine failure (we started with 4!) and a big fuel leak at an airport other than the nearest. However, the airport we chose was (in our opinion as the flightdeck crew) the most suitable because: we had just started the descent for that airport, we already knew the weather and had briefed the approach, it was home so we knew the airport inside out, the emergency crews knew our aeroplane inside out (as did the engineers on the ground) and a diversion to the nearest airport would actually have taken longer because of the need to re-plan and we could not spare the fuel.
If we had just reached top of climb and had not already prepared for the approach, then the choice could well have been different.
As yet we do not know what decision making process the crew went through (and probably never will) but I very much doubt that they had any priority higher in their minds than flight safety.
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Moggie,
No probs, I think we are all batting for the same team , just a few questions over team orders.
I mentioned the 'gravel' just to make the point that nearest is not always all we would wish, don't wish to sound like I'm teaching everyone to suck eggs!
I've been on a 4 that went BANG
on the climb and with 3 we went back to the departure point, same sort of decision process - suitable!
Safe flying
No probs, I think we are all batting for the same team
, just a few questions over team orders.I mentioned the 'gravel' just to make the point that nearest is not always all we would wish, don't wish to sound like I'm teaching everyone to suck eggs!
I've been on a 4 that went BANG
on the climb and with 3 we went back to the departure point, same sort of decision process - suitable! Safe flying
I really don't see the problem. As far as they were concerned it was out
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Found this in the online edition of The Hindu, a national newspaper based in Chennai and also known for its responsible reporting.
http://www.hindu.com/2003/10/03/stor...0304720500.htm
********
Mid-air drama preceded Emirates emergency landing
By T. S. Shankar
CHENNAI OCT. 2. After a preliminary probe by the Regional Controller of Air Safety department at the Chennai airport, a grounded Emirates Airlines jet, which made an ``emergency landing'' here on Monday with a ``fire warning'' in the cargohold area, was cleared to take off for Dubai on Tuesday night.
Though all 398 passengers on board had a miraculous escape even as the pilot noticed the ``fire warning'' alarm mid-way through the flight, an hour-long, mid-air drama preceded the full ``emergency landing'' here, according to airport sources.
The jet was flying at 33,000 feet on a cleared Dubai-Singapore route. When the aircraft was flying at about 170 nautical miles east of the Chennai airport, the Air Traffic Control tower authorities here received a ``May Day'' call on the emergency RT channel, the sources said.
Within minutes of their hearing the SOS, the air traffic controllers, established contact with the pilot and told him that he could set course to Chennai. Consequently, all operational agencies were alerted and a full emergency was declared for the aircraft to make a landing.
But when the aircraft was flying at 80 nautical miles east of the airport, the pilot sought Chennai ATC permission to hover for some more time, saying the ``fire warning alarm light had gone off''. However, a few minutes later, he again radioed a ``May Day'' call, seeking clearance to set course for returning to Chennai and land on a priority basis.
At one stage, the sources said, the Emirates Airlines jet, with the ``fire warning'' emergency in the cargohold, made a steep descent at more than 6,000 feet a minute, putting on hold all other traffic at different points mid-air and keeping the air traffic controllers on tenterhooks for nearly an hour.
Later officials of the Regional Controller of Air Safety began a probe into the cause of the fire.
An independent enquiry by an engineering team of the Emirates Airlines from Mumbai and Dubai has collected material evidence.
*****
Cheers
http://www.hindu.com/2003/10/03/stor...0304720500.htm
********
Mid-air drama preceded Emirates emergency landing
By T. S. Shankar
CHENNAI OCT. 2. After a preliminary probe by the Regional Controller of Air Safety department at the Chennai airport, a grounded Emirates Airlines jet, which made an ``emergency landing'' here on Monday with a ``fire warning'' in the cargohold area, was cleared to take off for Dubai on Tuesday night.
Though all 398 passengers on board had a miraculous escape even as the pilot noticed the ``fire warning'' alarm mid-way through the flight, an hour-long, mid-air drama preceded the full ``emergency landing'' here, according to airport sources.
The jet was flying at 33,000 feet on a cleared Dubai-Singapore route. When the aircraft was flying at about 170 nautical miles east of the Chennai airport, the Air Traffic Control tower authorities here received a ``May Day'' call on the emergency RT channel, the sources said.
Within minutes of their hearing the SOS, the air traffic controllers, established contact with the pilot and told him that he could set course to Chennai. Consequently, all operational agencies were alerted and a full emergency was declared for the aircraft to make a landing.
But when the aircraft was flying at 80 nautical miles east of the airport, the pilot sought Chennai ATC permission to hover for some more time, saying the ``fire warning alarm light had gone off''. However, a few minutes later, he again radioed a ``May Day'' call, seeking clearance to set course for returning to Chennai and land on a priority basis.
At one stage, the sources said, the Emirates Airlines jet, with the ``fire warning'' emergency in the cargohold, made a steep descent at more than 6,000 feet a minute, putting on hold all other traffic at different points mid-air and keeping the air traffic controllers on tenterhooks for nearly an hour.
Later officials of the Regional Controller of Air Safety began a probe into the cause of the fire.
An independent enquiry by an engineering team of the Emirates Airlines from Mumbai and Dubai has collected material evidence.
*****
Cheers
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Being a 777 driver, there is no doubting it is a wonderfully designed aeroplane, the redundancy etc. built into the aircraft is superb, if you HAVE to use it.
Even when you put a hose on a garden bonfire it still remains hot. Water has considerably greater cooling properties than the exstinguishing agents in the aircraft. So even with the cargo fire light out things are going to be mighty warm. If you don't have to I would have thought it was prudent not to test the aircraft structure for fire resistance.
brgds
CRS
Even when you put a hose on a garden bonfire it still remains hot. Water has considerably greater cooling properties than the exstinguishing agents in the aircraft. So even with the cargo fire light out things are going to be mighty warm. If you don't have to I would have thought it was prudent not to test the aircraft structure for fire resistance.
brgds
CRS
