Originally Posted by
Vegaspilot
CFR never once told him to hold off. They informed him of smoke coming from the left engine. That's it. He had no intention of an evac until that point, combined with the fact CFR wouldn't reply to his numerous calls after that fact. Someone said one time on frequency "to hold off on the evac", but no one was ever able to confirm who that was. The GOM specifically states to consider an evac for fire or suspected fire. t.
Are there tapes of this? We have the bingo Baden ATC tapes but nothing here? That would clear this up real quick.
The GOM says "consider" an evacuation but considering and reacting are two different things. Like I said previous, we should consider other options also. We have multiple ways to indicate fire on an airplane and one source that went NORDO isn't a hard case source.
If there really was a fire, CFR would have been fighting it and communicating.