Fire in th cockpit

[Check Pilot]

http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/20 ... twice.html

[yycflyguy]

This is a perfect argument against those who claim that pilotless airliners are on the horizon. The segregation of responsibility between pilot flying and handling the radios while the other fought an electrical fire was textbook. 2 competent pilots where required. 2 pilots kept this incident from being a catastrophe. Imagine a high altitude emergency descent while wearing smoke hood and smoke goggles while your partner fights flames in front of your face.

Why do pilots pick apart the errors other make yet never applaud those who did an admirable job?

Well done!

[Tim]

The FAA issued a proposed airworthiness directive (AD) to address the problem in March 2008, but has not yet finalised the action. An FAA spokeswoman says the AD was to be finalised in August, but the action will now be accelerated and issued "as soon as possible".

why does it take two and a half years to put out an AD?

[Pilot_king!]

It takes alot of convincing of the airline management to spend $ so they appeal and appeal until there is like 5 examples to go off and then finally airlines go "hmmmm....maybe they are right", so lets spend a few million and switch them all out.

Excellent point yycflyguy, I love a good success story. Actual emergencies is where pilots earn their salary.

[Shadowfax]

This is a perfect argument against those who claim that pilotless airliners are on the horizon...

...2 pilots kept this incident from being a catastrophe. Imagine a high altitude emergency descent while wearing smoke hood and smoke goggles while your partner fights flames in front of your face.

But if there weren't physical pilots in the cockpit they wouldn't need to put on the hood and smoke goggles in the first place now would they. Just fill the bloody main flight control area (cockpit?) with Halon and poof - no more fire! Its only the presence of those 2 humans that make extinguishing the fire more difficult (Halon displaces oxygen - bad for humans).

Better yet just isolate all the flight computers and controls in an oxygen deprived area so a fire can't start in the first place. Fires in the pax area can be handled by the stews just as is now. Actually, anything that can't be handled by remote sensing and "pilots" on the ground (flight directors handling multiple flights?) pushing the correct buttons probably couldn't be handled in the air. Losing the link, well that is a different story....

I'm gonna get burned for this one eh! (no pun intended)

[RVgrin]

Not only that, but the pilots made a terrible mistake a computer wouldn't have....

Wrongly believing that they had the fire under control, they turned away from the closest suitable airport ATC gave them and flew to the money-saving convenience of their company's hub. Fortunately they got the second fire out with a second fire extinguisher, or it would have become a classroom example of the lesson we should all take away from this:

If you've just extinguished a cockpit fire land immediately.

Better to be on the ground wishing you were in the air, then in the air wishing you were on the ground.

[yycflyguy]

Unbelievable comments.... not sure which one is more retard. I will call it a draw between RVgrin & Shadowfax

[cdnpilot77]

Not much a computer can do if a fire burns through or melts the wires/cables etc, at least a pilot can think "outside the box" How many computers can?

[boeingboy]

Unbelievable comments.... not sure which one is more retard. I will call it a draw between RVgrin & Shadowfax

Really? I thought RV was right on. If you've had a fire - land.

[yycflyguy]

Unbelievable comments.... not sure which one is more retard. I will call it a draw between RVgrin & Shadowfax

Really? I thought RV was right on. If you've had a fire - land.

I guess you didn't read the article. The crew was landing at the nearest airport when the initial emergency was declared. They put the fire out and landed at IAD instead. From 36,000 ft my guess is the difference was around 5 minutes from landing in Harrisburg or Dulles.

They did land as soon as practicable. At an airport that could accommodate their passengers and the plane. So are you professing they should have landed in a farmers field? Are you saying they should land on a piece of pavement that can't later accommodate a departure from? Are you saying they should land on a piece of pavement that had no instrument procedure forcing a visual with smoke in the cockpit while wearing goggles and oxygen masks?

Unbelievable. Even when a crew successfully battles an electrical fire, completes an emergency descent on masks/goggles, safely lands an airplane with no injuries or further damage to the aircraft the friggin peanut gallery can't acknowledge that this was a job well done.

They are Heroes.

[RVgrin]

Unbelievable comments.... not sure which one is more retard. I will call it a draw between RVgrin & Shadowfax

Really? I thought RV was right on. If you've had a fire - land.

Thanks. I suspect his ad hominem attack was because he perceived my comment as anti-pilot. He couldn't be more wrong about that.

I love to fly, and hold a deep respect for airline pilots. The two-crew cockpit is currently the safest setup, and will for the foreseeable future be our best response to rare and unexpected situations.

In these situations human lateral thinking and intelligence shines. But the fact is that situations beyond the ability of redundant automated systems will become increasingly rare as those systems improve. I personally believe that one day such exceptional circumstances will become statistically less likely to occur then pilot error.

But even on that day when completely automated airlines surpass the safety record of manned ones I will still choose a Boeing with a grey-haired Capt. sitting next to a salt-and-pepper-haired FO.... but I may advise my great-grandkids to take the safer fully automated shuttle.

[The Hammer]

YYC
Harrisburg has 10,000ft runway and is serviced freqently by United and even AC (Jazz). Hardly a farmer's field.

PS I'm sure the Swiss Air crew in Peggy's cove would have gladly taken the 5 minutes this United crew chose to use unnecessarily

Call me chicken but fires/smoke in an aircraft are something no one really gets realistic training for. Even at the airlines. (Unless your company starts up a campfire in the Sim while your training)


TG

[sanjet]

YYC
Harrisburg has 10,000ft runway and is serviced freqently by United and even AC (Jazz). Hardly a farmer's field.

PS I'm sure the Swiss Air crew in Peggy's cove would have gladly taken the 5 minutes this United crew chose to use unnecessarily

Call me chicken but fires/smoke in an aircraft are something no one really gets realistic training for. Even at the airlines. (Unless your company starts up a campfire in the Sim while your training)


TG

Swissair decided to dump fuel over the atlantic which took valuble time. Again, we we're not in the flight deck with these guys, im sure the united guys went through a lot of thought process before deciding to divert to IAD. Good work on getting her safely down.

[RVgrin]

The crew was landing at the nearest airport when the initial emergency was declared. They put the fire out and landed at IAD instead. From 36,000 ft my guess is the difference was around 5 minutes from landing in Harrisburg or Dulles.

I could say "a lot can happen in 5 minutes" and leave it at that. Or I could say "5 minutes seems like a long time when you are on fire".

Or I could dazzle you with logic: MDT-IAD is 91 mi. If they were closer to MDT they were greater than 45 miles from IAD when they accepted initial vectors and turned to MDT. After fighting a fire for a minute or two, checking lists, etc. and then reviewing their decision where to land they would have been at least 10 minutes from Dulles while perhaps only minutes from IAD....

But instead I am going to agree with you. The pilots did the what they thought was best and deserve our support.

So are you professing they should have landed in a farmers field? Are you saying they should land on a piece of pavement that can't later accommodate a departure from? Are you saying they should land on a piece of pavement that had no instrument procedure forcing a visual with smoke in the cockpit while wearing goggles and oxygen masks?

Now you are just being silly. MDT is equipped with a CAT III approach to a 10,000 ft runway. It just didn't have the pilot's cars parked there. (smile means just kidding)

Unbelievable. Even when a crew successfully battles an electrical fire, completes an emergency descent on masks/goggles, safely lands an airplane with no injuries or further damage to the aircraft the friggin peanut gallery can't acknowledge that this was a job well done.

They are Heroes.

If they were here I'd buy them a beer, but that doesn't make our passengers any safer. We are always better off spending our post-incident analysis debating what could have been done better. I suggest you leave the hero-making to the talk show hosts and figure out what you would do in that situation if it ever happens to you.

[Shadowfax]

Unbelievable comments.... not sure which one is more retard. I will call it a draw between RVgrin & Shadowfax

Retard?...you must be from Saskatchewan. The correct term is "mentally challenged".

I made and have no comment on the actions of the flight crew in this particular situation.

YYCflyguy commented this was a good example against pilotless aircraft - I couldn't disagree more. I'm not for or against pilotless aircraft, but that comparison using this incident is very much flawed. While pilots can think outside the box, the very nature of our human frailities, like needing to see and oxygen, make a physical pilot in a smoke/fire filled cockpit a worse scenario than a "pilot" safely on the ground piloting the airplane and dealing with the emergency remotely from a sterile and safe environment. (There is no future for fully automated flight as of yet, only remotely piloted - like the current drones.) If you can think outside the box, there would be no windsheild fire cuz there would be no "cockpit" and no windsheild required. Any fire in any flight control/computer area is easily extinguished by healthy amounts of Halon - if no humans are present.

"When the fire burns through the cables"....tell me, what exactly will the pilot in the actual cockpit be able to do when the fire burns through the cables on a fly by wire airplane that someone on the ground couldn't??? If the fire is that severe you really think John Wayne up front is going to save it - especially if it's in the cockpit? Those white shirts ain't fire proof are they? - SWR at Peggy's cove comes to mind doesn't it. Although so does the Kansas City DC-10.

If you lose the ground link - different story. But you would have to understand air ground links like CPDL or ADS-B to understand the redundancies. Hell even an F1 car has more telemetry than a modern airliner.

If we just want to call each other retards and have flame wars I'm all in I guess. Seems to me though that if pilots want to be considered as intelligent professionals that will save the day when shit happens, then we ought to be able to have a civilized debate without playground name calling...or maybe not.

[reality check]

my guess is the difference was around 5 minutes from landing in Harrisburg or Dulles.

They did land as soon as practicable. At an airport that could accommodate their passengers and the plane. So are you professing they should have landed in a farmers field? Are you saying they should land on a piece of pavement that can't later accommodate a departure from? Are you saying they should land on a piece of pavement that had no instrument procedure forcing a visual with smoke in the cockpit while wearing goggles and oxygen masks? .

yyc,

You have come up with some beauties on here, but I think this takes it.

As someone who has most unfortunately endured not one, but two electrical fires, it is your comments that are "retarded." Or perhaps "underdeveloped" would be more appropriate.

Perhaps you should stop and think before posting in the future.

[yycflyguy]

While pilots can think outside the box, the very nature of our human frailities, like needing to see and oxygen, make a physical pilot in a smoke/fire filled cockpit a worse scenario than a "pilot" safely on the ground piloting the airplane and dealing with the emergency remotely from a sterile and safe environment. (There is no future for fully automated flight as of yet, only remotely piloted - like the current drones.) If you can think outside the box, there would be no windsheild fire cuz there would be no "cockpit" and no windsheild required. Any fire in any flight control/computer area is easily extinguished by healthy amounts of Halon - if no humans are present.

OK, this is interesting. So thinking outside the box in your pilotless airplane. A fire breaks out in your pilotless plane who is going to extinguish the flames? The automation system just keeps pumping Halon into the cabin because it detects smoke. No problem right? It's just passengers and inflight sucking on the toxic retardant.

An engine fire at V1 who is going to shut down the engine, clean it up and get it safely back on the ground?

A rapid decompression occurs, who is going to ensure the safety of passengers and cabin crew?

You are probably going to say the automation, right? Who is going to monitor that the automation does what it is supposed to do?

I just flew 2000 miles tonight and there was an error in a database waypoint that only a pilot could identify. Will automation save a GNE? What about a TCAS warning? What about when turbulence exceeds autopilot limitations and everything clicks off? Who is going to ensure safety of flight?

Would automation catch a fuel leak? Would automation know how to handle unreliable airspeed indications?

Unbelievable, people think that the pilots erred somehow here. The had an emergency. They declared an emergency, extinguished the fire and got the plane safely on the ground. Comparing this to Swiss Air is totally off base. Smoke is probably the scariest thing you could see while in flight. They did not piss around burning fuel off to avoid an overweight landing. This crew got the plane safely on the ground with the added bonus of it being a mx base and more capable of handling their displaced passengers - WHO THEY JUST SAVED.

[Shadowfax]

Valid points indeed - if we just take any ole airplane and let a more advanced autopilot fly it.

I think the concept you are missing is that if and when they ever go "pilotless" in commercial airspace with a commercial airplane - it won't be like anything we have seen before - it certainly won't be the normal systems that require the physical pilot in the physical airplane.(BTW they HAVE flown unmanned drones in civil airspace already) IN fact, "pilotless" is a misnomer - the present proposals are more like the USAF drones - managed by people on the ground while the on-board systems take care of the mundane stuff - like normal flying. With CDPL I see a day when its ATC that does it all - separate, navigate and deal with any contingencies. Afterall, in the IFR world isn't the pilot really just an imtermediary to make the plane do what ATC wants? (save the latest cowboy antics at JFK) (that was a VERY tounge in cheek comment - no flame required)

Apart from unusual events, nobody can tell me that most big airlines aren't being flown 99% of the time by on-board systems right now! (the 1% being taxing and initial take-off - the hardest part to automate). Monitored by a pilot in the cockpit or on the ground - don't see much difference. I do see your point about when the shit hits the fan - but you miss my point that those events actually can be handled by people on the ground - and in some cases - in a far better manner.

In alot of ways, relying on two humans actually on board the airplane controlling it from one central location is a really bad idea. Aviation is all about redundancy but there is 0 redundancy to the physical cockpit - if it fills with smoke or fire to such a degree that life becomes impossible THEN WHAT? They crash is what!

That was the only point I was trying to get across - the example of fire and smoke in the cockpit being a good argument against "pilotless" is actually a good arguement for it!

[yycflyguy]

Afterall, in the IFR world isn't the pilot really just an imtermediary to make the plane do what ATC wants?

You have put the horse ahead of the cart. ATC is a service to provide separation to aircraft. Pilots are not there to fulfill the wishes of ATC. Quite the contrary. In an ideal world ATC should work to accommodate the wishes of a pilot - both pursuing the interest of safety. It ends up being a give and take relationship but you are minimizing the importance of pilot experience. It is NOT ATC that dictates how an aircraft is operated.

I am aware that there have been pilot-less drones flown. A big difference is the fact that there hasn't been a couple hundred paying passengers seated in that plane.

Monitored by a pilot in the cockpit or on the ground - don't see much difference

Many times we have visually identified CBs on track that have not been detected by ground radar. ATC is unaware of why we need to deviate as their screens and our onboard radar show nothing (dry CBs) but pilots have identified a threat to safety.

What about the leisure aircraft operating without altitude encoding transponders? All we get is a primary target identified at our 12 O'clock, altitude unknown. How is the ground operator going to know if it is a hazard or not? Pilots looking out the window is how.

For those that think that pilot redundancy is not required, let me tell you a story of how the Captain got ahold of a bad quesadilla and got salmonella poisoning en route that completely incapacitated him. I mean passed-out-vomiting-in-the-lav incapacitated. FO handled the medical emergency and safely diverted and landed the aircraft. True story.

Unusual events happen more often than are reported in the newspaper. It is the work of the pilots that keep situations from deteriorating to incidents/accidents.

My point is No, not every situation can be handled on the ground. I could list another 20 personal situations where rational human logic was needed to avoid a potentially hazardous situation and that human needed to be there in the hot seat.

Thanks for the debate... I take back the special Olympics comment on my part.

[Longtimer]

Of course in a pilotless aircraft there would be no need for cockpit windows, unless of course marketing sells the special view seats .....