threeighteen

Singapore Airlines flight SQ368 plane bound for Milan catches fire on Changi Airport after emergency landing | Daily Mail Online

Can someone more knowledgeable than I am explain why the airplane was not evacuated as soon as it caught fire?

awax

I'm sorry to embarrass you on a public forum, but it's obvious from the photos and footage that only ONE wing was on fire.

rickair7777

The industry seems to have taken a half-step back from the "blow the doors instantly at the slightest hint of smoke or fire" mentality. The reason being is that injuries (and hence lawsuits) are very common during an evacuation, especially on bigger planes with high doors and many pax. People have been badly injured because a PACK made some smoke and an evac was triggered.

Tail-mount engines is less of a dilemma, there's little fuel back there and if you're pointed into the wind the smoke/fire should stay away from the people.

Wing-mounted engines are more of a dilemma...the fire is close to a lot of fuel and can turn very ugly very quickly, but if you blow the doors before the fire's out people could get incinerated if they go the wrong way. Do nothing, and you risk a worse scenario.

Also are you at a real airport airport with ARFF, or did you divert to the nearest stretch of pavement?

This one did look pretty scary to me, but maybe the crew couldn't see how bad it was. You'd think tower would have provided some insight. If tower told me they "see a little smoke" I'd probably run checklists and let ARFF take care of it. An agitated statement along the lines of "you're wing's on fire!" and I'd probably evac.

But maybe time to rethink...this clearly could have turned into a catastrophe if the fire-fighters hadn't been quick to arrive..

threeighteen

Can you explain why I should be embarrassed?



So another weird thing about this situation, the ARFF response was pretty abysmal (especially for a plane that had turned back). 2-3 minutes is a LONG response time for an aircraft that is already returning due to an emergency situation. Why weren't the trucks already at the runway?

Honestly it's a miracle those people are still alive.

awax

Because you can't recognize sarcasm?

Regularguy

Am I the only one here who wonders why there was no evacuation?

Cause of dramatic Singapore Air 777 fire could take months to figure out

The video associated with this fire makes me cringe and if the articles are correct people sat on a burning airplane for some time before the fire department came to their rescue.

The outcome was probably better than an evac, because no was was injured and had they evacted there would have been injury and possible loss of life in this case. But, fires historically are not so benevolent in our airplanes.

These passengers were "lucky" and "blessed" on this day.

Cringe!!!!!

ugleeual

my guess is the pilots did not know the right wing was on fire... cannot see it from the cockpit... and none of the inflight crew picked up the intercom. I'm very surprised the tower and/or another aircraft did not call a fire on the right wing... which should have led to an immediate EVAC.

Probe

It is a new change to the EVAC checklist.

Do you think the fire rescue bubba's will put the fire out:

Yes - Have the passengers remain seated and pray.

***********************************

No - Continue the EVAC checklist.

Regularguy

Of course the pilot may not have known it was on fire, that is not uncommon in these types of airplanes. Even the 737 has had a raging fire (BA) in the aft portion of the airplane and the pilots were unaware of it.

This is why UAL FAs can and will vac on their own without command from the pilots. Could Sigapore FAs not have such authority, are they just a beautiful face to provide inflight service and do they take their safety duties as a primary task?

Think about the L1011 that safely landed in the Middle East many years ago and the people all died while the Captain *** and withheld an order to evac. They all could have been safely evacuated while they waited for fire rescue.

This incident with Singapore's lack of evac is a big deal and needs to be reviewed and examined for our future actions.

Rama

The decision to not evacuate is troubling. It may have been an oil leak which caught fire and thus was not actually fuel on fire. Still, its better to evacuate out the non-burning side and risk a few injuries as opposed to waiting for the firefighters and hoping nothing bad happens.