well you're right about that, very big Ifs, enough to make Occam roll over :)

Foam, Jet Jockey A4, tons of foam.



Don't think anyone has suggested that they didn't? The entire thread has devolved into a two sided discussion on whether the captain should have ordered an evacuation immediately and ignored any outside professional advice, if it was available, or made a decision based on all information available, with both sides basing their argument on pure speculation and no, or very few, relevant facts. The thread has become a hamster wheel and I am jumping off!.

Glaring omissions and mistakes by the crew and AES.
Complete silence from airline and regulator.
Kudos team desperately trying to explain.

Result of the duck test is very clear.

My mistake, yes I know it is foam but instead wrote water. )-:

Now I believe the concentration of the chemical that makes the foam is only 3% to 6% of the content so in fact it is mainly water.

Given the caveats that we do not know what messages were recieved by the crew from amongst others, cockpit indications , cctv, cabin crew, fire chief, atc or company, certain things stand out.
The fire crews started extinguishing around about 1min 7 sec after the aircraft came to a stop.
At Manchester the pooled fuel which was on fire on the left hand side burnt through the hull beneath the cabin compartment betwean 5 sec and 20 sec after the aircraft stopped. The fire burnt through the hull directly into the passenger compartment no later than 1min after the aircraft stopped. The windows burnt through arround 50 sec after the aircraft stopped.
About 5 Pax died directly as a result of fire the rest from inhaling the toxic fumes.
The main cause of entry into the cabin of fire and fumes was the hull breach on the left. The wall of thick smoke induced a sense of panic and fear in the passangers. ( this fear acording to the report was replicated in other aviation fire scenarios).
Once the hull was breached by the fire there was only a very limited time frame in which to evacuate all the passangers.
Therefore in this case:
If there had been fire directed at the hull either from the source or from pooled fuel then it is highly likely that the hull would have been breached by the time the fire crews started to fight the fire. By that time there would also have been mass panic amongst the pax as they struggled to escape. ( but acording to some that would obviously be better than evacuating)
Cabin crew are trained to look for hazards before opening the doors and are thus unlikely to have opened directly onto burning pooled fuel.

The argument against evacuation in case of pooled fuel does not add up when faced with the above aspects.
The immediate hazard to pax remaining in the cabin was very high and far greater then the hazards associated with evacuation.
We wait to see what information was recieved by the crew that made them follow the course they did. I am sure that whatever the reasons they did not intend to endanger lives.

I think that sums it up very well.

Minimbah's photos (post no. 640) reinforce PT6Driver's points. That fire was getting through aluminium sheet very fast.

Exactly. This was a no-brainer, and I fail to understand those sitting on the fence. ATC must have said your #2 is on fire. The fire crew was a minute plus out and going in the opposite direction. They could not have added any pertinent info in the first minute. The crew have a wing camera. The cabin crew would surely have told them that the whole right wing was ablaze. The LHS was safe as we have seen from photos. So tell me why they did not evac?

Sorry, there are no excuses here.

I wonder if people posting here and favouring staying in the aircraft have ever been in a real fire .
I have about 30 years ago.
The fire started with radar absorbing foam catching fire.
Then aluminium burning. Then flames up to
3rd floor level. Examining the building the next day steel I-beams of
possibly 50cm depth supporting the roof were bent like bananas.

After that I and others got some fire training with foam, powder, water,
and lots & lots of diesel.. Good fun.

If I had been on that aircraft I would have left it somehow.

Remember the Tenerife 747 accident years ago. One of the few people
and wife I believe to escape, did not wait for instructions but fought
their way out. He had been in a fire years ago as a young man.

John

Old sage wishes in aviation: a variation on a theme.

"better to be on the ground outside, looking at the a/c on fire, wishing you were inside the a/c waiting to watch the fire brigade do their thing, than waiting on the inside of burning a/c wishing you were outside, and wondering WTF is the fire brigade. "

There were 70 survivors.

Given that there were 583 people killed, I think 70 survivors qualifies as a few.

Remember the Tenerife 747 accident years ago.

Not quite sure you are comparing Apples & Apples. Perhaps more the L-1011 in the Gulf. Even that is Apples & Pears rather than Oranges.

Why bring up Tenerife?
 

Not really relevant on this thread? Except perhaps the inaction of the first officer?

If the cap is dithering, and the wing is ablaze. Then make the call.

Relevance of Tenerife accident.
 

I suppose my point was that you may die whilst awaiting instructions,
which may never arrive. Does jet fuel burn hot enough to ignite aluminium
alloy ?

In the pictures posted by Minibah #640:
The damage you see is to composite materials either CRFP or GRFP or a mixture of both.
No wing fuel tank access panel appears to be breeched.

Thanks Whinging Tinny, that cancels out posts 671 and 672 (Methersgate and Julio747), both highly speculative.


Regarding Tenneriffe, both aircraft were torn to pieces and on fire inside and out with no possible chance of communication between any members of crew or PA to passengers.

OK, but like others I'm still awaiting published facts on this.

I did note in the earlier videos of the rollout and stop that there appeared to be a step change in the black smoke and fire before the fire trucks arrived that I didn't immediately ascribe to a wind change ?

Lomapaeso:
I think you are going to be waiting a very long time for a report of any description.

Any step change was probably the deselection of reverse thrust.

Poppycock
 

Cancels out the posts? Nonsense! The plane and passengers were seconds from disaster, to coin a phrase.... No thanks to the indecisive crew.

So here's the thing. Some pilots like to conceptualise their own infallability, and by extension, the infallibility of all pilots.

Whereas smart pilots know that other pilots, like themselves, make mistakes.

I know which type I want up front. We are all human. Including pilots. That's why we write sops so when the **** hits the fan, you don't have to think. #2 and wing on fire >> out! Out! Done.