BA own about the same number of GE engined -200 aircraft as RR Trent powered types.
We still have 3 of the original GE -76 "A market" short range -200s ply the UK to east coast routes, whilst the longer range -85 powered models are used world wide, but lack the range and bunks of the longer legged Trent models.

BA evacuation procedures require the Fuel Cutoff Switches to be operated BEFORE the Fire Switches as a relic of the days before the Fire Switch was modified to automatically shutoff all of the fuel pump/spar valves. AFAIK, all BA aircraft have been modified since the BA38 incident.

I suspect this is why locking of overhead lockers, as has been suggested, may be counter productive. You will now find aisles blocked by confused, panicking people wondering why they cannot open the overheads and looking/waiting for someone to unlock them and wasting time deciding whether to wait for the "unlock" or to leave without their . All to the possible detriment of others ...

The first problem is getting people to watch the safety vid. The majority of people don't seem to bother.

Regarding deployment of the port slides, it's apparent that there would have been smoke visible on both sides of the aircraft.

Originally Posted by LTNman

Just make the central locking engage when a constant voltage is applied. If power is cut or turned off then it defaults to release.

Could it be that what ever exited number 1 engine at 4 o'clock elf (hpc , turbine?) bounced off the tarmac and up into the fuse severing fuel lines or opening the centre tank and that's where the fire was concentrated?

Well done to the crew for remaining so composed given the clear size and intensity of the blaze. Also very well done to the fire crews at McCarran for dealing with the problem so swiftly and effectively. I know it's their job but credit where credit is due for a job well done. Not been mentioned too many times so far in this thread.

TWR - With respect to disks - the energy these things are running at coupled with the totally random nature of a failure makes it inevitable that they will be uncontained. The goal of the compressor area is to raise pressure but this obviously raises temperature with it. The second you introduce fire or temperature within the casing, you are raising the temperature outside of the normal operating zone placing materials beyond operating limits and failure becomes inevitable. The subsequent release of energy however is subjective and completely dependent on so many factors. As such, sometimes a disk failure event is contained and sometimes it isn't but the energies and highly random nature of a failure makes it impossible to really contain.

The Qantas failure was also not a failure of the casing exactly, it was a defect in an oil stub pipe which fed oil to the LPT area which is already running at high temperature, oil leaking into this area makes a fire and failure of some kind inevitable. The eventual domino effect release of energy is just something the casing cannot cope with, not one made of lightweight alloys anyway. Most work is done to prevent a failure ever occurring rather than to mitigate the failure. Disks are therefore designated as safety critical because they will endanger flight if they fail so failure is not something that should ever really happen. Diligent operation, preventative maintenance and also good design are the main reason we rarely see disk failures so it would be worrying if one has occurred here.

In this case, it is hard to judge from the images and accounts so far but speculating I suspect the fire was mainly precipitated by oil but it is not possible to say why or how. The passengers and captain's account of what happened during the takeoff will reveal far more about this I am sure. Personally I am just glad this aircraft did not make it into the air.

Wrong, as far as immigration procedures are concerned it is third world at its worst. Have no passport and not a US citizen, you will enjoy the hospitality of immigration custody courtesy US taxpayers until your embassy manages to arrange replacement papers, which can take days. We had a couple of rerouted pax on the AF 340 that wens off the end of the rwy at YYZ, some obliged with the no hand luggage during evacuation, their reward was spending the night and the next day at the immigration holding room. Those morons who carted all their belongings off were put into the airport Sheraton at AF expense...

How many deaths have we had due to pax bringing hand luggage during an evacuation? What would be the cost of retrofitting all aircraft with central locking? Cost-benefit calculation anyone?

Get real guys. Focus on the big issues threatening air safety like working and employment conditions.

I am pleased nobody was seriously injured in this incident but BA long haul is less likely to have problems with hand baggage in an emergency evacuation than the low cost short haul carriers such as Ryanair mentioned above. They actively discourage passengers from putting luggage in the hold and have also relaxed their previously strict carry on policy in an attempt to be more “passenger friendly”. On my last flight with Ryanair in the summer, passengers were struggling with two carryon bags, blocking the aisles as they boarded and disembarked which undoubtedly would also have happened in an emergency evacuation. My primary irritation at the time was the fact that there was no overhead locker space remaining and my carryon bag had to go into the hold anyway. There was nothing in the safety briefing about leaving bags behind in the event of an emergency evacuation although plenty about putting on a lifejacket in the more unlikely event of a survivable ditching. Should the safety briefing be updated from what was appropriate in piston propeller days and be more suited to purpose for modern aircraft?

Quite true. But every time there is an evacuation, ppruners come out of the woodwork to whine on about how stupid pax. They make the same comments every time, every single time. They do it because it makes them feel superior. Its rather like the those who, in a crash thread, rush to be the first to post METARs.

anengineer expresses the luggage down the slide problem perfectly. If there is a problem with luggage in this sort of scenario, and it looks very much as if there is, then the solution is unlikely to be to ask people nicely to behave in a certain way. Dispassionate analysis required. Jacob Steinberg in today's Guardian, who was on the plane, describes things from the passenger viewpoint very well - worth a read.

A perfect example of the real reason we have flight attendants on board. Our safety.


No doubt lessons learnt from this incident will contribute to our collective knowledge on how passengers act in an emergency situation.

With ref to Sober Lark's post has anyone got a copy of the poster that was around many years ago with the caption

Flight Attendants, there to save your butt not kiss it.

A copy should be up in every crew room worldwide.

13 crew and 159 pax, of whom 13 or 14 (reports vary) suffered minor injuries during the evacuation.

That seems an unusually high proportion (around 8%). Without wishing to fuel the hand baggage debate, I wouldn't be surprised if hurling carry-ons down the slides turns out to be implicated in some of those injuries.

Getting your high viz is a good idea. Passengers can quickly identify you as crew, and it may help you in getting their attention to direct pax whilst on the apron.

I would prefer not to see that sort of comment associated with my airline in which the cabin crew are polite to passengers in addition to being able to handle all sorts of emergencies from small to large.

People /passengers (and Pilots) are creatures of habit.


Locking the overheads sounds like a good idea until you realize that many passengers won't realize why they can't open them and stay on board desperately trying to open them up to get their bags possibly losing their lives as a result.


If they're going to take their bags you can't stop them, better to just get them off ASAP.


Pilots have been know to do the same thing in the past..

Correct! :ok:

Unfortunately, a lot of the present generation aviation 'professionals' have downgraded themselves into "inside-the-box" thinkers who will blindly follow orders coming from middle/senior management.

"Button-pushers," "magenta-line-followers" and "minimum-rest-minimum-fuel-maximum-duty-pilots" is the result, and that's a MUCH bigger and more permanent danger to aviation safety than a handful of passengers taking their hand luggage during an evacuation.

Airlines are quite happy to throw out the baby with the bathwater by pushing more and more passengers into taking only hand luggage, so it's natural for passengers to take their 'vital' hand luggage even during an evacuation.
The governments and various 'authorities' up the ante by having turned our once free society into a virtual police state, making you feel completely vulnerable and 'naked' when stuck somewhere without your passport, wallet, some clean clothes/underwear and tablet PC/laptop.

Passengers take their hand luggage because they know they will be left to fend for themselves and completely at the mercy of governments/immigration authorities and airlines where you have to stand in long queues on order to get some lousy hotel/food/drink vouchers.

Exactly. And if the relevant people won't prosecute those who have carried bags off, in direct contravention of instructions given and therefore breaking the law, then any passengers who have been injured by bags should sue the person whose bag injured him/her. A few very high profile cases (excuse the pun) will be needed to make the point. Stupidity is no excuse for endangering others.

As has been said before, you can keep your passport and you wallet in your pockets. All else is less important than a life. And an additional bit of common sense (that a couple of posters have already pointed out) is to keep your shoes on for take-off and landing: would you really want to be escaping over possible broken debris in you bare or 'socked' feet?

I just cannot understand the stupidity of people posting on here who somehow feel that carrying bags off in a situation like this is in any way condonable.

Stay on the runway and allow the fire vehicles room to move around the scene unrestricted plus not allowing the wind to blow the flames against the fuselage. Fine job by the crew and as someone already posted some important lessons from the past have played a part. Well done BA.

The wing fairing?

Look, again, at the pic in post 53. There's a ruddy great hole - as in, maybe 15ft long - in the forward hold! If I was shown that photo cold, without knowing the story, I would have assumed a bomb had gone off in the forward hold. The fan is substantially intact; it *looks almost as if* one or more disks from the compressor or turbine have departed, and ripped up the fuselage.

As I said, repercussions.

I don't see anyone condoning it, just people trying to explain what REAL human behaviour looks like in a random, chaotic, once-in-a-lifetime, terrifying experience. You can quote all the rules in the world and expect Joe Public to read ANO's at bedtime but you aren't being realistic so which camp is the stupid one ?

In the MAN 737 disaster recently anniverseried, the studies showed the majority of survivors were the ones who had an instinct to survive, not the ones with a pass in Air Legislation.

John_Smith
I think you are absolutely right in what you say.
But (big but) which airline is going to be brave enough to incur adverse PR by bringing such cases to court.
The answer, to my mind, is to carry ALL passenger baggage in the hold.
I check everything and have a small hand bag with shoulder strap in which I carry my passport, ticket, boarding pass, wallet, MP3 player, a 7" tablet computer, mobile phone along with a small power pack that will give both a couple of full charges which keeps them going for my occasional 11 hour direct flights from BKK to LHR. It is 9" x 8" x 6" and sits on my lap during takeoff and landing.
I suppose people hope that they can exit the arrival airport quicker by carrying all their junk in the cabin with them but my experience these days is that once you get through the queue at immigration your checked baggage has usually been unloaded off the carousel and is sitting in a pile waiting for you to collect it.

Any similarities with GVIID at IAH 12 Aug 2004?

A GE90 that let go just after take off.

I was on it: a lot less dramatic than this!

I think not (as did many passengers apparently) in this case, the plane didn't crash, it caught fire on the runway. Totally different scenario than an accident, where people would have been abandoning their luggage to save their lives.

Time will tell what happened, likely the plane would have extinguished any fire on its own, but the fire truck was right on it before the passengers were evacuating anyway.

As others have said, there was more danger from firetrucks running around like chooks with their hads cut off, running over and killing passengers, than from the fire.

Maybe I am totally OCD but when I am travellling the mere idea of not having my passport/cards/one or two other vital bits and pieces on my person freaks me out.

On the issue of people taking bags with them its not right but is it preventable-people react in different ways under extreme stress and no matter what laws are in place may do the 'wrong ' thing. The only way is to reduce the amount of hand baggage on board from the ridiculous amount sometimes seen. In one of the pics on this thread a man in shirt is carrying what looks like a full size case from the burning plane.

I was on board a BA short ahaul flight in the exit row last week and the FA was very diligent about bags not being allowed under those seats much to the chagrin of the American pax sat next to me -he commented different airlines different rules but I am not sure who allows under seat bags in the exit rows in any country so despite seemingly a frequent flyer he was either unaware he was in an exit row or ignorant of the rules.I suppose if I was really nasty i could have called the FA back and said my seat mate isnt a suitable person to be flying in an exit row..

So you cannot stop this behavour but you can try to improve it- re inforce it in the briefing -cut down the ditching bit if you have to as there are seldom any ditchings anyway (or 'landings on water' to use the ultimate oxymoron ) .
Also encourage through publicity , travel agents , internet sites etc to keep your passport with you or, better yet, take a pic and store it on your phone as most people are surgcally attached to their phone and make sure immigration authories are properly briefed to treat accident victims as just that and not terrorists. Even the TSa might understand that the bad guys are unlikely to have peoplel in place on USA bound flights all a round the world 24/7 so someone can slip into the country when an accident happens saying -my passport is on the plane and it got burned.

People panic in spite of endless entreaties from cabin crew, police and Corporal Jones because it is NOT a controllable response -if it was no one would panic-so educate a lot and minimise the risk because you cannot eradicate reactions to risk completely.
PB

Hand luggage, shoes etc
 

I have never had to go down an evacuation slide, and I just don't know how I would react if the cabin was filling with smoke - just like all the others I expect.
I do think however that the dichotomy expressed here between the flyerfolk who want passengers who take bags with them punished in some way, and the analysts of human behaviour who stress the unpredictability of human reactions in a crisis is a somewhat sterile one.
It is probably unrealistic to expect 100% compliance with instructions about bags, but if the proportion of passengers carrying bags, particularly heavy ones from overhead lockers, could be minimised, that would surely help.
This might be achieved if passengers were "nudged" by information and advice at all stages of the booking, check in and briefing procedures to think of cabin baggage in two categories. A passport, a phone, money,possibly medication, possibly a laptop are vital and irreplaceable to many people (and the difficulties and delays of continuing a journey without documentation have already been highlighted) and should really be kept with you in the seat. A change of clothes, toiletries, duty frees and all the other stuff in the overhead locker is much more easily replaceable.
I also think I remember some years ago thefts from overhead locker luggage, which is another reason for keeping your valuables as close as possible.
Although no bags/possessions at all will remain the counsel of perfection, implying that a very small bag (handbag/briefcase size) can be taken with you might be the best pragmatic option.
The suggestion that shoes should not be removed until seat belt signs are off seems eminently sensible, but I haven't come across that on any airline I have used.

There's a clearer (daylight) pic of the hold damage here (telegraph.co.uk)

I would respectfully suggest that 'hand luggage' should be just that - a bag you can carry on your lap or between your feet, nothing requiring stowage in an overhead locker. Certainly not a wheeled suitcase. Nothing that could injure anyone else by the sheer weight of it on an evac chute.


Seeing the size of some of the luggage in that photo has shocked me.

I am delighted the Flight and Cabin Crew performed as we would all hope to do in this nasty situation .. and that everyone evacuated without serious injury ..

The close up photo of the fire damage left me with feelings of dread if this had happened after V1, and heavy weight fire fighting facilities were not immediately available ...

The last 2 paragraphs of LLuccifer's comment sadly carry some weight, as history has shown that after incidents like this people have been left "high and dry" .... wear your shoes until after take off and have your wallet and passport in your pocket ...

I.Duke

Where? I can see a picture showing that the wing/body fairing has caught fire and disappeared, I cannot see into the freight hold (but it is dark in there)

Probably not a factor in this case but when will airlines switch to green exit signs?
Red means danger, don’t go. So 25 years ago the world began adopting ISO’s green running man exit sign. In Australia only places where red exit signs are still allowed is in the Senate chamber and on aircraft!
Jetstar’s 787s are an honourable exception – their greatest safety improvement may well be green exit signs.

Hand Luggage
 

Perhaps one possible solution here is to instruct passengers to ensure absolutely essential items (wallet, passport, medications) are carried in trouser/shirt pockets or very small purse/pouch from the moment they board.

Evacuation drills could be practiced with passengers carrying such items in order to verify they don't impede flow.

If tests are successful, suitable pouches could then be sold at airport terminals, and the evacuation rules slightly relaxed to allow passengers to exit with just this small item.

I very rarely comment on these forums as I am not a pilot, I'm a safety/risk practitioner; however I have been involved in an emergency evacuation of a Dash-8 plane for a fire in the hold at BHD.

When the evacuation command came my partner and I were out of the plane PDQ, however I had to literally force the people in the row in front of me to evacuate as they were trying to retrieve their luggage.

In the airport where we were all corralled I noticed about a dozen passengers had luggage. I asked them in a non-threatening manner "why did you take your luggage?". Most people didn't really have a reason, they just did it instinctively. Two people said that they were "queuing to evacuate" so used the time to get their luggage. One said it was under the seat so it was a bit of an obstruction so they took it with them.

I would suggest that there is a PA announcement that state "Evacuate - Leave your luggage" that repeats in such circumstances.

As an aside, the fire was a false alarm, and it took nearly two hours to retrieve our hand luggage from the aircraft and that took a lot of persuasion from us as most of us had house keys, car keys etc in our hand luggage and couldn't get home without it. They originally told us we couldn't get them until the next day.

It shouldn't be the airline. A law has been broken. It should be the police.

OK that pic is clearer; let's paste it directly into the thread so we all can see it. I agree; impossible to guess at this stage how much is down to fire and how much is down to impact. But at the extreme right side it's clear the engine cowling is severely disrupted, and blown outwards directly towards the damaged area.

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/...2_3433621b.jpg