PPRuNe Forums - American Airline plane catches fire on runway at Chek Lap Kok

PPRuNe Forums (https://www.pprune.org/)

- Rumours & News (https://www.pprune.org/rumours-news-13/)

- - American Airline plane catches fire on runway at Chek Lap Kok (https://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/600494-american-airline-plane-catches-fire-runway-chek-lap-kok.html)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Roto1711 (Post 9920961)

All ground crew vehicles have fire extinguishers, one would think someone would try to use one!

That is assuming you could reach the fire with it -- the height seems to make that a futile effort from the outset.

GSE maintenance at most Ground Handlers is not done on a wait until it breaks basis, there is preventative maintenance carried out. Each type will have a schedule for being taken to the workshops to be checked over and have items such as hoses replaced. That said, the Hi Loaders in particular can suffer split hoses due to the nature of their work and the climate they operate in.

All servicing of GSE is recorded and it is an area that is audited by the airlines when they carry out their GHA audit, including things like serviced fire extinguishers in each ramp vehicle. A lot of Airport authorities also audit the GHA's to ensure that incidents like this are a rarity. Obviously some audits are more thorough than others, but I would like to think that a major carrier such as American Airlines performs decent audits.

At the major airports I have worked at it was a requirement for all ramp staff to receive fire training, and recurrency training bi-annually. In that training will be an instruction to call the emergency services and advice not to try to be a hero. Stands usually have a dedicated emergency phone or failing that a landline phone to call from, plus there will be ramp staff with radio contact to their offices who can get the office staff to call the emergency services if needed.

As already mentioned, the height above ground of this fire is probably the major factor as to why the fire bottles in the vehicles, and the fire equipment at the head of stand, wasn't used.

Quote:

Originally Posted by autoflight (Post 9920934)

Loading equipment appears to be maintained to a low standard, but will we ever know if that contributed to this fire?

How did you arrive at that conclusion?

I was hiding behind a G&T in the CX bridge lounge which gave me a good view of the port side of AA when about 6 fire vehicles and an ambulance arrived from my position it appeared that they sprayed the APU tailpipe,clearly not the case.
Some appliances remained on scene for at least 5 hours

Quote:

Originally Posted by surely not (Post 9921145)

At the major airports I have worked at it was a requirement for all ramp staff to receive fire training, and recurrency training bi-annually. In that training will be an instruction to call the emergency services and advice not to try to be a hero. Stands usually have a dedicated emergency phone or failing that a landline phone to call from, plus there will be ramp staff with radio contact to their offices who can get the office staff to call the emergency services if needed.

As already mentioned, the height above ground of this fire is probably the major factor as to why the fire bottles in the vehicles, and the fire equipment at the head of stand, wasn't used.

It may well be that they looked at how quickly it was taking hold and realised that their little extinguishers were already outclassed.