DLH diversion toManchester
 

DLH404 FRA to JFK squawked 7700 close to Prestwick and diverted to Manchester. B747-830 D-ABYA. Suspected wheel well fire. Landed safely.

I'm not a 747 expert, but we are talking about an unpressurized area at presumably above 30000 ft. How much will burn at that altitude?
A cargo fire warning I can understand, but wheel well fire warning?
I don't think I would have diverted in a situation like this, but I was not there.

If you get a fire warning you divert to the first available point. End of text.

Or am I missing something ?

I guess that explains the fire tenders waiting by the runway when we landed (FR2253 from Lisbon).

ManaAdasystem, so you would continue across three thousand odd miles of ocean happy that the system was giving a false indication because the same indication had been false previously? Whilst wheel well fires are most likely due to hot brakes after take off, there are electrics in the bay, hydraulic fluid and rubber. As the aircraft was close to Prestwick when it diverted, there must not have been much in it between a spiralling descent into Prestwick or the trip to Manchester, where DLH has a big presence.

Don't know about the -800, but on the -400 there is a ECL procedure for this: put the gear down and land at the nearest suitable airport. You would need a very good reason to ignore that and continue, in my opinion.

This particular topic, not specific incident, was beaten to death some months ago on Prune. Would you wouldn't you? I've had it at FL 160 climbing towards the Alps. I'm not paid to second guess the systems. Whip it around, descend to departure airfield and let the engineers decide it was a wiring problem. On an ETOPS sector with 3 hours to diversion; that's for another time to discuss; but it will happen one day.

Watching the aircraft on Planefinder, it descended very early in the diversion to below 10000 ft and then slowed. Reported elsewhere that the gear was dropped ASAP, so looks like a copybook diversion.

I really would recommend you try a Google search on "tyre fires" or a similar query... that should answer your query quite comprehensively.