if you look at the pictures, it would be hard to believe the cargo didn't burn...whether it was the cause of the fire or the cargo caught fire subsequent to another fire will certainly be a subject of investigation.

if we ''wait'', why even have pprune at all? I heard about it on FoxNews.

Did you have a look at the photots on the previous page?

It certainly looks like a fire in the cabin.

Could have been cargo, could have been wiring, coulda been lots a things.

Glad everyone made it.

Maybe the cargo was...lithium batteries. :rolleyes: It was a UPS plane carrying laptop batteries. Made an emergency landing at PHL, Feb 7, 2006.

Where's the aircraft now? Normal Riyadh procedure is to pull it off the runway a few hundred feet, and let it sit for 20+ years.

Isn't the point of a "Rumour Network" to, er, well, you know postulate ideas, maybe hazard a guess, you know that sort of thing? After all there's absolutely no compulsion on your part to read or comment, is there? If others want to give it a go then aren't they living up to the name of this board?

Otherwise we should rename the darn thing - "Professional Pilots Facts Only Network"....

I dunno', it's getting rather tedious seeing people complaining all the bloody time about the fact that people are posting opinions, which is the point of the board in the first place.

- GY :ugh:

Looks like a fire mid cabin. Not much you can do but, put it on the ground ASAP or send a crew member back and try an combat it. Not a nice scenario both ways. Good job by the crew of getting it on the ground and I hope they recup. soon!

very well put Garage Years:ok:

She is the most challenging plane of all civilian widebody airliners with the highest wingloading and fastest approach speeds. Not easy to land at all, even under normal conditions. The Lufti guys belong to the best trained pilots in the industry and nevertheless this happend, a sad day for the industry. Lets be thankfull that they survived.
http://images.ibsrv.net/ibsrv/res/sr...er_offline.gif http://images.ibsrv.net/ibsrv/res/sr...ons/report.gif Cws, you coudn't have put it better ! The MD 11 is the most unforgiving airliner in history. The statistics are a testimony to that.
http://images.ibsrv.net/ibsrv/res/sr...eply_small.gif

Perhaps FedEx's new main deck fire suppression system will turn out to be a wise investment after all:).

Evanelpus
 

Thank you Sir,

Spot on

NS

What happened to the rh inboard aileron?

@gazin

Fedex has fire suppression (i.e. halon) for maindeck as well?
Do they have a solid smoke barrier or a curtain solution?

htpaccv.
Fedex have both solid bulkhead & net/curtain configured MD11's but most are net/curtain. The fire system is for containerised freight.

I never understood why a cargo plane like this one, does not has a loadmaster or some other crew member on board. He could finish a fire like this if he was fast enough to reach te ignition point, :rolleyes: and help the crew of a big widebody in something else if it was necessary...frankly, it's a big plane and lots of cargo for two men...:{

HatzerimMoney. It's the same reasons that busses and trains have less staff and why there are less cabin crew and so on around the world.

I understand that...but shouldn't SAFETY be there first? :suspect:

Hatzerim,

Just FYI, 80 tons cargo is not too far from max cargo so even if there was someone else on the aircraft, getting back to where the fire was (presuming you could even find it) would be difficult - at best. A fully loaded MD-11 does not leave much room to go for a stroll.

Also, on this flight, there happened to be two crew. Sometimes there are more. Loadmasters are "typically" used to load the freight but may not travel with the aircraft for operators like Lufthansa Cargo. That said, sometimes additional crew are on-board, but I think you are being overly optimistic to think that someone is going to be able to squeeze by all of those pallets and containers to fight a fire aft of the wing, presuming that is where it started of course.

The guys did the right thing. Land Immediately. Fortunately, they were in a position to do that and not somewhere out over the Atlantic. If that were the case, we would possibly be telling a different story.

Safety?
 

Hatzerim

It's not only money, where's the safety having a 'loadie' sitting about waiting for something to happen. He sure isn't needed to load or unload the a/c. Even if the cargo did catch fire if it were containerised he'd have a hard job even getting a probe anywhere near the source, and how would he know where the source is? Some years ago BA were forced to stop flying the 747 combi as the UKCAA insisted that if the cargo was mixed with pax on the main deck then a fireman (not a pretend fireman) was positioned on the pax side of the bulkhead in full fire gear for the duration of the flight. Now that's safety-and the airline decided double quick time that it wasn't worth the hassle.

You have to be proportional in all of this. How many fires per thousand hours etc etc. I'm no actuary, those people are paid far more than pilots to figure out the risk v profit.

S

"I dunno', it's getting rather tedious seeing people complaining all the bloody time about the fact that people are posting opinions, which is the point of the board in the first place."


Couldn"t agree more, it seems like other peoples suggestions or ideas are becoming Personal Insults to some, so what if there wrong, it"s an open forum after all, it"s a place where people can Toss around ideas and hopefully learn something. When i looked at the Pictures i came to the view that it wasn"t an Engine Fire, but i could still be wrong, no need to Blast me into Cyber-Space because of it.

I am so glad my company uses loadmasters on most of our flights, obviously it keeps me in a job but more importantly, there as the first line of defence.
It has to be said though, the MD-11's attrition rate is rather unsettling. That's not assuming the aircraft itself was at fault here.