UPS Aircraft Down In Dubai
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All as reported here 8500ft at 24 km (13nm), 7000ft at 6nm , 4000ft at 1nm and crash site is approx 11.5nm beyond DXB... all in a straight line apart from last turn to the right...
The aircraft, having overflown on a south-easterly heading, turned right approx 200 degrees before then turning left, while descending rapidly. The descent rate then decreased markedly before radar contact was lost.
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The big Russian freighter main cargo decks are unpressurized I believe.
Maybe they have the right idea there. Whether their aircraft are capable of climbing high enough to get rid of a lot of the O2 is another matter of course.
Wont be the first time they lead the "west" is it?
Maybe they have the right idea there. Whether their aircraft are capable of climbing high enough to get rid of a lot of the O2 is another matter of course.
Wont be the first time they lead the "west" is it?
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New rules are required
Smoke and/or fire have led to QRH procedures that have changed many times over.
In stead of trying to isolate and/or evacuate the smoke from the flight deck using various system configurations.
It is time to have a closer look to design.
Design should incorporate a system whereby the crew can shut off ALL air supply to the flight deck, reverse the equipment cooling flow and flight deck air (dump it overboard) by use of a SINGLE Switch.
Hereby must (if a choice needs to be made) protection of the flight deck crew have priority over the cabin.
This includes having a look at the possibility to volunarily depressurise to extinguish the fire and reduce the use of electrical busses to a minimum. All with a single switch. Procedure should be reversable.
I's back to the drawing board.
In stead of trying to isolate and/or evacuate the smoke from the flight deck using various system configurations.
It is time to have a closer look to design.
Design should incorporate a system whereby the crew can shut off ALL air supply to the flight deck, reverse the equipment cooling flow and flight deck air (dump it overboard) by use of a SINGLE Switch.
Hereby must (if a choice needs to be made) protection of the flight deck crew have priority over the cabin.
This includes having a look at the possibility to volunarily depressurise to extinguish the fire and reduce the use of electrical busses to a minimum. All with a single switch. Procedure should be reversable.
I's back to the drawing board.
Last edited by Pitch Up Authority; 5th Sep 2010 at 15:31.
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Russian big plane AN124,..it is pressurized, no doubt
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Sorry if I've missed a post, but there seems to be a general assumption that the fire started in the freight compartment and was caused by something in the cargo. Surely its equally possible that the fire had nothing to do with the cargo and was, for example, started by a wiring fault - remember the Swissair MD11.
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If the beancounters are really as cynical as some posters in this thread have suggested - ie. "pilots are cheap, why spend money on EVAS etc." - then surely they (the beancounters) are missing the point when it comes to incidents like this? Yeah, it was "just" the two poor souls in the flight deck this time - but it could so easily have been the two pilots PLUS a large section of expensive Dubai real estate and at least a few dozen of its unsuspecting residents.
Surely any incident that renders an aircraft like the 744F essentially uncontrollable is not just an horrendous one for its crew, but for whoever happens to be occupying the space underneath it at the time? What if the next incident like this is shortly after take off from LHR or JFK and they're descending blind over densely packed suburbs?
I'd have thought any responsible operator would have to look at the bigger picture when it comes to incidents like this, and that any responsible solution to these problems should focus on maintaining the aircraft's ability to fly - and the crew's ability to fly it - for as long as possible after a fire is first detected. Crew bailing out James Bond style, even if it were practical for them, would have rather dire consequences for folks on the ground.
Surely any incident that renders an aircraft like the 744F essentially uncontrollable is not just an horrendous one for its crew, but for whoever happens to be occupying the space underneath it at the time? What if the next incident like this is shortly after take off from LHR or JFK and they're descending blind over densely packed suburbs?
I'd have thought any responsible operator would have to look at the bigger picture when it comes to incidents like this, and that any responsible solution to these problems should focus on maintaining the aircraft's ability to fly - and the crew's ability to fly it - for as long as possible after a fire is first detected. Crew bailing out James Bond style, even if it were practical for them, would have rather dire consequences for folks on the ground.
Last edited by Montgolfier; 5th Sep 2010 at 16:57.
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This is in no way to be disrespectful of the two poor souls on this flight, just a general thought on the pilots bailing out of a seemingly doomed plane.
Sounds cynical maybe but in the bigger picture it is better to loose a crew of 2 than to have an unmanned 744 crash lets say into Brooklyn or Manhattan. In WW2 I guess the crews didn't care much as they were usually over enemy ground and who cares where the plane crashes if the intention was to bomb the hell out of the people below you anyway... Wasn't there though an american B-XX (don't know the number, before the 52) bomber that had engine troubles on a trainings mission from Alaska to the Northwest of the US, crew bailed out and the plane flew over terrain for some thirty minutes or so before crashing in a remote, mountainous area of Canada...?
Sounds cynical maybe but in the bigger picture it is better to loose a crew of 2 than to have an unmanned 744 crash lets say into Brooklyn or Manhattan. In WW2 I guess the crews didn't care much as they were usually over enemy ground and who cares where the plane crashes if the intention was to bomb the hell out of the people below you anyway... Wasn't there though an american B-XX (don't know the number, before the 52) bomber that had engine troubles on a trainings mission from Alaska to the Northwest of the US, crew bailed out and the plane flew over terrain for some thirty minutes or so before crashing in a remote, mountainous area of Canada...?
Last edited by grimmrad; 5th Sep 2010 at 17:22.
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Russian big plane AN124,..it is pressurized, no doubt
Only the passenger compartments are pressurized the Cago compartments remain unpressurized during flight, its the same with the AN 12 where only the flightdeck and crew accomodation are pressurized
it can be pressurized up to 3.57 PSI on the main deck.
Antonov An-124 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Only the passenger compartments are pressurized the Cago compartments remain unpressurized during flight, its the same with the AN 12 where only the flightdeck and crew accomodation are pressurized
it can be pressurized up to 3.57 PSI on the main deck.
Antonov An-124 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Talking point about pressurized or non-pressurized deck is the fact that the cargo fire became more intense while burning cargo was descended out from 25000ft down into the higher pressure environment, this was revealed by FAA research mentioned early on this threat.
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A fire inside the fuselage is the worst possible emergency one can face. You have very little idea of the exact location or severity of the fire, but you know the consequences of it.
Jumping the checklist or rushing is usually not a good idea, but with an onboard fire the checklist is rarely useful beyond the obvious, and direct cockpit-crew firefighting attempts are ill-advised for a number of reasons.
All you can do is to get on the ground ASAP and in order to do that you have to be able to see: the instruments - the ground - something - anything. A sucessful autoland with smoke in the cockpit due to a fire somewhere inside the fuselage is a simulator fantasy.
Anthing you have to do in order to see should be done - forget the book... the clock is ticking; you're going to die.
Opening a DV window (if you have one) depressurized, inflight doesn't cause reverse airflow from the cabin into the cockpit. Very little actual flow occurs due to the fuselage becoming "pressurized" by the forward motion of the airplane, unless you open something in the cabin - such as an overwing exit - which becomes extremely difficult due to the pressure you've created. Once you do manage to get the overwing exit open, there's quite a bit of flow (front to back) and it gets noisy - but you can see. (personal experience, below 5,000 ft and 250 kts).
Someone mentioned the onboard fire that killed Ricky Nelson - here are the firsthand observations of the duty copilot on that flight:
On-Board Fires
Jumping the checklist or rushing is usually not a good idea, but with an onboard fire the checklist is rarely useful beyond the obvious, and direct cockpit-crew firefighting attempts are ill-advised for a number of reasons.
All you can do is to get on the ground ASAP and in order to do that you have to be able to see: the instruments - the ground - something - anything. A sucessful autoland with smoke in the cockpit due to a fire somewhere inside the fuselage is a simulator fantasy.
Anthing you have to do in order to see should be done - forget the book... the clock is ticking; you're going to die.
Opening a DV window (if you have one) depressurized, inflight doesn't cause reverse airflow from the cabin into the cockpit. Very little actual flow occurs due to the fuselage becoming "pressurized" by the forward motion of the airplane, unless you open something in the cabin - such as an overwing exit - which becomes extremely difficult due to the pressure you've created. Once you do manage to get the overwing exit open, there's quite a bit of flow (front to back) and it gets noisy - but you can see. (personal experience, below 5,000 ft and 250 kts).
Someone mentioned the onboard fire that killed Ricky Nelson - here are the firsthand observations of the duty copilot on that flight:
On-Board Fires
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Quote: Blue Up: My personal bugbear on the subject of fire/smoke in the flightdeck is the continual reluctance to print the checklists in larger print for these particular drills. I've bitched about it for 2 years but nothing has been done. "Yes, great idea....and we'll let you know".....
AIRBUS has done this some years ago!
AIRBUS has done this some years ago!
Several contributors have mentioned opening the DV window. Well, as we all know the 747 doesn't have one. But other types do. Many years ago I was involved in some tests, the first on a VC10, the second on a 707.
On the VC10 we lit a smoke generator in the middle of the flight deck and opened the copilot's DV window at around 5000ft and 210 kts. The result was so much noise we could only communicate by hand signals and the smoke streamed forward and then past the copilot's instrument panel further reducing visibility. I think we also tried speeds up 250kts with the result that noise level only got worse. When we tried the captain's DV window the result was the similar on his side.
Some years later I tried the same on a 707 but without a smoke generator, so were unable to check the effect on the visibility. But the noise levels were very high making cockpit communications almost impossible.
Clearly in extremis it might be worth trying to open the DV window, but I would be very, very wary of doing so in view of the above results.
Several people have mentioned how hazardous fire in the air is. I agree. Unfortunately check lists can be of doubtful value. There is really only one option and that is to get on the ground ASAP.
On the VC10 we lit a smoke generator in the middle of the flight deck and opened the copilot's DV window at around 5000ft and 210 kts. The result was so much noise we could only communicate by hand signals and the smoke streamed forward and then past the copilot's instrument panel further reducing visibility. I think we also tried speeds up 250kts with the result that noise level only got worse. When we tried the captain's DV window the result was the similar on his side.
Some years later I tried the same on a 707 but without a smoke generator, so were unable to check the effect on the visibility. But the noise levels were very high making cockpit communications almost impossible.
Clearly in extremis it might be worth trying to open the DV window, but I would be very, very wary of doing so in view of the above results.
Several people have mentioned how hazardous fire in the air is. I agree. Unfortunately check lists can be of doubtful value. There is really only one option and that is to get on the ground ASAP.
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The 744F QRH calls for the partial depressurisation of the aircraft. This is done by a single button on the overhead panel, which automatically raises the cabin to 25,000ft. The problem comes when you have to descend into the more oxygen-rich atmosphere.
On a two man crew with a main deck fire you are going to lose the aircraft unless you can get to a runway within about fifteen minutes. When running 744F command courses we always discussed the option of putting the aircraft onto any available stretch of water if this could not be achieved.
Dave
On a two man crew with a main deck fire you are going to lose the aircraft unless you can get to a runway within about fifteen minutes. When running 744F command courses we always discussed the option of putting the aircraft onto any available stretch of water if this could not be achieved.
Dave
a single button on the overhead panel, which automatically raises the cabin to 25,000ft.
Could be useful if a horse was acting up - after warning the grooms
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Pressurized or not, one thing is for sure: when we are on fire, or we have smoke in the cockpit, we'll be on ground or sea within 15 minutes - then we explain in the office - alive! No pilot should forget this.
