A320 Engine Fire at VR

[slate100]

I'm wondering about this scenario in an A320...

Engine fire at Vr.
400 feet you run the ECAM action and you secure the engine.

But... let's assume the engine fire does not go out. The light stays illuminated.

What do you? Do you do a 180 degree turn and land back on the departure runway? Or do you continue normally... push to level off and clean up, and complete the Ecam...

I recall an instructor said you have roughly 7 minutes to live with an uncontained fire.

[lomapaseo]

Originally Posted by slate100

I'm wondering about this scenario in an A320...

Engine fire at Vr.
400 feet you run the ECAM action and you secure the engine.

But... let's assume the engine fire does not go out. The light stays illuminated.

What do you? Do you do a 180 degree turn and land back on the departure runway? Or do you continue normally... push to level off and clean up, and complete the Ecam...

I recall an instructor said you have roughly 7 minutes to live with an uncontained fire.

I'm not so sure about the conversation with the instructor's statement..

Of course you fly the aircraft first, You are then dependent on the ability to defeat the fire. The odds (borne out historically) are definitely with you once airborne.Engine fires either stay with the engine a short time (until fuel cutoff) or end up behind you in a slip stream. Either way over a longer time, you always have the ability to confirm with eyeballs what is buining outside the engine and to take additional considered actions to get on the ground quickly

[vilas]

400 feet you run the ECAM action and you secure the engine.
But... let's assume the engine fire does not go out. The light stays illuminated.

Incidentally unlike engine fail, in case of fire ECAM appears straight away. With fire at Vr after retracting the gear put the AP on and do the ECAM. However if you started the ECAM at 400ft by the time you fire the second shot and realize fire isn't gone you may be above 1000ft. It's silly to clean when you should be landing. Do an offset, turn around configure for downwind landing. After landing Evacuate.

[birdstrike]

'Do an offset' - it sounds so simple, but unless it's something you have practiced and briefed for I would suggest you are probably creating more problems than you are resolving. We used to throw it in unexpectedly during crew training and more often than not it turned into a shambles.

[novice110]

The idea of briefing the unexpected has always seemed a bit useless to me.

In this scenario you are on fire in the air, and the actions the crew take will not be briefed and that is ok.

[Check Airman]

PF sets up for an immediate return by joining the downwind. PM fights the fire. What's the complication?

[krismiler]

A 180' turn to land back on the departure runway could have you going head to head with another aircraft followed by a downwind landing. A MAYDAY call with a short circuit keeping the speed up as long as possible would probably be a better option.

[vilas]

Originally Posted by Check Airman

PF sets up for an immediate return by joining the downwind. PM fights the fire. What's the complication?

Once second agent is discharged and it's realised that it hasn't worked there's nothing more left to fight the fire with. All that's left is to assess how much time you have what altitude you have reached. From 400ft to second agent discharge should put you above 1000ft. If you assess you have time for a circuit then do so. If required circuit can be done on select speed without any set up. The other option is to do a kind of procedure turn and land downwind with a May Day off course.

[waren9]

i've flown for 3 jet operators and not one of them has advocated for briefing for/or performing a reversal turn and landing downwind.

still, if everybody walks away you can call it a win i guess.

[vilas]

Originally Posted by Small cog

Any SFI teaching as SOP is not fit to be in position.

I thought you are a small cog. But you are shooting your mouth as if holding some regulatory position. I didn't teach. when your wing is on fire you just do what you think will save your ass. Nobody taught Sully to ditch but he did it. He could have gone back also. As long as he made it no questions would be asked.

[vilas]

i've flown for 3 jet operators and not one of them has advocated for briefing for/or performing a reversal turn and landing downwind.

Do you ever get taught for uncontrollable engine fire? The Concorde guys were they taught what to do when there is fire in tanks and no fire warning? Come on man! We are just discussing possible solutions. The OP suggested it. I only showed how to do it. And nobody briefs about all possible situations. You won't be departing on time.

[Nightstop]

A bit off topic but...Night take off from LGW in a BAe146, me PF. During gear retraction: “AVIONICS SMOKE” Master Warning. Emergency call from Cabin: “forward galley oven on fire, ceiling above melting”. Levelled off at 1000’ AGL and flew a left hand visual circuit to land back on 26L, vacated at FR and stopped. Fire extinguished, so no evacuation. Airbourne time 5 minutes, I wouldn’t have wanted to be up there any longer. (Avionics Smoke warning due to galley smoke being drawn into the avionics bay).

[The Nr Fairy]

Worth a read - https://www.gov.uk/aaib-reports/3-20...-30-march-1998

HS748 (precursor to the ATP) which had an uncontrolled engine fire at V1/Vr and the commander feared fire destroying the wing spar.

Dissimilar to the A320 in that it would slower at Vr but an interesting thought process. Quick thinking by the commander on this one - result, 0 / 4 crew and 0 / 40 minor injuries.

[Denti]

Many people never flew a reversal in their flying career (yup, done it, out of around 100ft without an engine, quite foolish). To be able to pull it off with the added stress of a fire one cannot fight any more is a pretty remote possibility. Better do a normal visual circuit, which has been done quite a lot during every pilots training, enabling them to fall back on that very basic thing. And an engine fire does not mean that the wing is on fire, just that there is a very high temperature within the engine nacelle, since we usually cannot see the engine out of the flightdeck we cannot check visually, therefore we would have to rely on the cabin crew that at that stage is still strapped in, and where communication takes considerable time to begin with.

So, mayday, visual circuit, stop on the runway and check out if there is any real fire to begin with, just evacuating with a faulty indication would be quite stupid, after all the captain in that case might be liable for any injuries in certain jurisdictions.

[vilas]

Many people never flew a reversal in their flying career

True! And you don't have to do it. But should you decide to do it for whatever reason then it's not a big deal. Engine fire at take off teaches you to do ECAM and fire goes out on first or second agent discharge. When it doesn't it's all yours. If it works no questions asked. If it doesn't then with or without you conclusions will be drawn. I know one case where with failure not fire radar vector was asked for and given and yet the pilot overshot and went round.

[Fursty Ferret]

Take a step back. For an engine fire to not go out requires both the high pressure and low pressure fuel valves to fail open. Hydraulic fluid will burn, but not well. So either you’re really unlucky (>10^9 probability) or this is your sole remaining engine (cowl door loss incident from a few years ago?).

The engine is nicely separated from the wing on the end of a pylon. Let it burn. Fly the aircraft. Should you screw up the turn back that you’ve never practiced you’re going to at least double your time in the air on the subsequent go around. What about traffic following you? Landing traffic? ATC? Tailwind? No ILS when you might really want one.

IMHO only... Keep flaps one. If you’re used to it, enter a visual circuit. Otherwise climb to 2000 or 3000 ft and fly a sensible approach. You’ll still be on the ground within 10 minutes.

[felixthecat]

180 turn for a downwind landing, on something that you have probably never practiced and even if you have maybe once under no real stress in the sim? I have messed around in the sim and it wasn’t any quicker than a quick return via normal circuit pattern. Plus Flying the pattern is reverting to normal ingrained skills so you are both on the same page and know what’s going on.

Just my 2 cents worth....

[Jonty]

For an engine fire I would do a circuit and land.

An uncontained cabin fire might be a different story.

[saviboy]

Originally Posted by waren9

i've flown for 3 jet operators and not one of them has advocated for briefing for/or performing a reversal turn and landing downwind.

still, if everybody walks away you can call it a win i guess.

Every take offs I have done at my last 3 operators, we have briefed what we would do in case we need to do an emergency return. I always insert the departure airport longest runway in the secondary flight plan along with populating the secondary PERF APPR page for that runway. This was SOP at two of my last three airlines. the current one only has it as a "best practice". That way, whoever ends up flying the aircraft is only 2 or 3 key strokes from having the correct landing data in the FMGS and can now divide his/her attention at doing other things.

My current airline divides abnormals into "no time" and "time". A time problem could be an engine failure. There aren't too may problems that would be classified as "no time problem" but a smoke/fire event is certainly one of them. We are in the business of managing risks. Can we manage and plan for all risks? Of course no. But why would we not discuss the course of action that will be taken for the worst problem of all problems?
Almost anything else can be managed at a slower pace but not a fire.I think it's a good idea to be ready for it.

[FullWings]

Originally Posted by Fursty Ferret

Take a step back. For an engine fire to not go out requires both the high pressure and low pressure fuel valves to fail open. Hydraulic fluid will burn, but not well. So either you’re really unlucky (>10^9 probability) or this is your sole remaining engine (cowl door loss incident from a few years ago?).

The engine is nicely separated from the wing on the end of a pylon. Let it burn. Fly the aircraft. Should you screw up the turn back that you’ve never practiced you’re going to at least double your time in the air on the subsequent go around. What about traffic following you? Landing traffic? ATC? Tailwind? No ILS when you might really want one.

IMHO only... Keep flaps one. If you’re used to it, enter a visual circuit. Otherwise climb to 2000 or 3000 ft and fly a sensible approach. You’ll still be on the ground within 10 minutes.

I think this is sound advice.

Light aircraft, helicopters, etc. yes, you want to get it on the ground ASAP, off-airport if necessary. In a modern jet twin/triple/quad which may also be a “heavy”, trying to fly a turn back is difficult when it goes well and probably won’t save much time but will likely set you up for an unstabilised approach to a downwind landing.

If you’ve lost an engine, have a fire warning and are initially flying around at V2 (with the bank limitations that entails), what’s a turn back pattern going to look like? Much easier in an extreme workload situation to fly a wide pattern to an instrument runway, which is a well-practiced manoeuvre and much more likely to end in success. There is also the bonus that everyone on the flight deck will be in a familiar situation and able to monitor/help effectively.

As FF above, I regard an engine fire warning as something that requires action but not to the point of compromising safety in other ways. What does a fire indication tell you? All it means is that, false warnings aside, the temperature in the nacelle has reached a certain point (175 to 300C in some installations, depending on which area) and if the warning is still active, that the temperature is still above that level. It doesn’t necessarily follow that you are burning brightly and dropping bits of wing and engine over the countryside...