Royal Air Maroc B763 evacuation at Montreal
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Complex problem for sure. Opened main/service doors would need to be closed and then re-armed before the slides could be deployed. The exits just aft of the trailing edge are permanently armed emergency exits only. It may be that a combination of usable exits and the air bridge offers the best solution. In my airline, crew are trained to open an exit and evacuate if they consider the situation is life threatening.
It all goes to prove that any real emergency is unlikely to be text-book.
It all goes to prove that any real emergency is unlikely to be text-book.
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Opened main/service doors would need to be closed and then re-armed before the slides could be deployed.
good point well made
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Seven passengers were treated for smoke inhalation
Strange to have only used the slides at 3L/R, can't tell if a Jetway is at 1L or 2L but 1R and 2R could have been used and would have been a much better choice than 3L in this case, probably only about 10 m from the bottom of the slide to the burning vehicle.
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This particular scenario is not well covered in our training. Some airports will try to remove airbridges if they believe the aircraft may cause fire to spread into the terminal. Others will shut the boarding gate. Therefore, the only sensible option is to put everyone onto the apron, by whatever means.
Trash du Blanc
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I had a GPU catch fire once, sitting on the ramp in KATL. We were in an ATR-72.
A beefy rampie (who looked like Christopher Reeve) skidded up in a tug, connected the GPU and yanked out the power cable, and drove it off in a cloud of smoke and sparks. Quite the brave act - there were flames licking the fuselage…..
A beefy rampie (who looked like Christopher Reeve) skidded up in a tug, connected the GPU and yanked out the power cable, and drove it off in a cloud of smoke and sparks. Quite the brave act - there were flames licking the fuselage…..
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On the first link the top picture shows somebody coming from the wind side at the back of the plane with a big powder extinguisher .
It looks to be before the evacuation .
It looks to be before the evacuation .
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Nice to see a healthy discussion at long last on the topic of whether to evacuate or not.
I enjoyed playing devil's advocate to try to kick off the discussion and I am now hoping it will produce some intelligent comments and reasoning over an action which strikes me as SOMETIMES carried with the idea that the initiator is covered and can't be criticised after the event.
Any action which results in passenger injury should be carefully considered with a risk assessment as to whether they are better off aboard, as in the case of the exploding hot tyres and brakes discussed elsewhere, or you do the equivalent of beating up every 4th passenger and putting them in hospital just because someone said the magic words smoke/fire, by calling an evacuation.
When an aircraft comes to a halt at the end of the runway, off a pre-notified emergency landing, surrounded by that airport's finest in their firefighting equipment, is it really a justified action to jettison the pax "because I'm legally entitled to"?
One day perhaps, when the facts are known, said pax are going to sue the crew/airline/xAA and anyone else in the lawyers' sights for causing unnecessary stress, injury, trauma and the rest of the charge sheet and then we may see a change in emphasis by those in command.
I also await the first evacuation by the RTO aircraft which has discharged engine fire extinguisher(s), thereby producing a puff/cloud of white vapour as the extinguishant hits the hot engine, interpreted by ATC and others as smoke, thus causing the crew to misunderstand and call evacuate with the resultant injuries! How many of todays crews have thought of or heard this phenomenon discussed and self-briefed to consider such possibility?
I hope the thread continues and we get more info as to what Professional Pilots are thinking.
As the "non-pilot" referred to earlier, please don't let my passengers know that I am such an animal, as they may not wish to board my flights next week?!
I enjoyed playing devil's advocate to try to kick off the discussion and I am now hoping it will produce some intelligent comments and reasoning over an action which strikes me as SOMETIMES carried with the idea that the initiator is covered and can't be criticised after the event.
Any action which results in passenger injury should be carefully considered with a risk assessment as to whether they are better off aboard, as in the case of the exploding hot tyres and brakes discussed elsewhere, or you do the equivalent of beating up every 4th passenger and putting them in hospital just because someone said the magic words smoke/fire, by calling an evacuation.
When an aircraft comes to a halt at the end of the runway, off a pre-notified emergency landing, surrounded by that airport's finest in their firefighting equipment, is it really a justified action to jettison the pax "because I'm legally entitled to"?
One day perhaps, when the facts are known, said pax are going to sue the crew/airline/xAA and anyone else in the lawyers' sights for causing unnecessary stress, injury, trauma and the rest of the charge sheet and then we may see a change in emphasis by those in command.
I also await the first evacuation by the RTO aircraft which has discharged engine fire extinguisher(s), thereby producing a puff/cloud of white vapour as the extinguishant hits the hot engine, interpreted by ATC and others as smoke, thus causing the crew to misunderstand and call evacuate with the resultant injuries! How many of todays crews have thought of or heard this phenomenon discussed and self-briefed to consider such possibility?
I hope the thread continues and we get more info as to what Professional Pilots are thinking.
As the "non-pilot" referred to earlier, please don't let my passengers know that I am such an animal, as they may not wish to board my flights next week?!
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I would want to get everyone off that thing ASAP. There is a vehicle on fire adjacent to the aircraft. That vehicle contains a fuel tank that could ignite in spectacular fashion.
My first priority is the safety of the passengers and crew. How to get them off is more complicated than usual, due to disarmed doors/ground equipment etc. The lawyers can argue the toss afterwards.
People will sue no matter what.
My first priority is the safety of the passengers and crew. How to get them off is more complicated than usual, due to disarmed doors/ground equipment etc. The lawyers can argue the toss afterwards.
People will sue no matter what.
train for this...
we did train for a fire on or around an a/c whilst a jetty/jetway was connected to an aircraft many years ago at BMA LHR if pax were boarding or sitting on-board whilst re-fuelling.
safest and quickest ways was to get everyone off (primary) ONLY via the jetty attached to the a/c...especially if fire around the rear or under the wings...
that's what we were trained for...the jetway gives plenty of protection in evac.
In this RAM fire i noticed no one around using extinguishers nor any fire services on the scene yet in the video...although in a still photo on AVH i think i can see a bod in a hi-viz pushing a red thing which could be a couple of extinguishers on wheel trolley thingy...
for pax to exit the R3 exit slide things may well have become a bit desperate in the cabin hence using that R3 slide, and that comms may have been difficult from the rear to front cabin...
strange that 2L/R slides were not used which are dual lane and door is much wider and their paths were clear...
i have had a GPU madly catch fire in a blaze of sparks and flames (GPU parked between the nose and the wing) during boarding 150 pax on a remote stand at LGW (by steps,not jetty)
about a coach load were already on-board a/c...
sequence of my events: i was on the ground.
i saw it catch fire, called the fire service on my radio, waved to the skipper in cockpit who acknowledged, ran over to Shell guy refuelling and warned him, he grabbed an engineer to switch off GPU/try and move it, and they grabbed extinguishers, I ran back to the pax coaches and stopped pax getting off the coaches, got the number 1 c/c at the pax door and told her to get everyone off the a/c NOW back off by the back steps...that was all done in the time it takes to say these words...fire crews arrived within a couple of minutes or less..
i am glad we had some good training. everyone came together at once. no one questioned me, we all acted immediately and all were safe.
another observation on the RAM i do not see any ground engineer on a headset to the cockpit which of course would have helped...strange that no one was around the front end.
safest and quickest ways was to get everyone off (primary) ONLY via the jetty attached to the a/c...especially if fire around the rear or under the wings...
that's what we were trained for...the jetway gives plenty of protection in evac.
In this RAM fire i noticed no one around using extinguishers nor any fire services on the scene yet in the video...although in a still photo on AVH i think i can see a bod in a hi-viz pushing a red thing which could be a couple of extinguishers on wheel trolley thingy...
for pax to exit the R3 exit slide things may well have become a bit desperate in the cabin hence using that R3 slide, and that comms may have been difficult from the rear to front cabin...
strange that 2L/R slides were not used which are dual lane and door is much wider and their paths were clear...
i have had a GPU madly catch fire in a blaze of sparks and flames (GPU parked between the nose and the wing) during boarding 150 pax on a remote stand at LGW (by steps,not jetty)
about a coach load were already on-board a/c...
sequence of my events: i was on the ground.
i saw it catch fire, called the fire service on my radio, waved to the skipper in cockpit who acknowledged, ran over to Shell guy refuelling and warned him, he grabbed an engineer to switch off GPU/try and move it, and they grabbed extinguishers, I ran back to the pax coaches and stopped pax getting off the coaches, got the number 1 c/c at the pax door and told her to get everyone off the a/c NOW back off by the back steps...that was all done in the time it takes to say these words...fire crews arrived within a couple of minutes or less..
i am glad we had some good training. everyone came together at once. no one questioned me, we all acted immediately and all were safe.
another observation on the RAM i do not see any ground engineer on a headset to the cockpit which of course would have helped...strange that no one was around the front end.
Last edited by rog747; 10th Nov 2013 at 13:46.
