Originally Posted by
decrabbitz
We (Fx 777) were having this conversation mid-Pacific last month. Main deck fire checklist has you stay at fl250 unpressurized until near airport, could be hours. Recent tri-annual cbt training said that with cargo fire, history shows you have at max, 20 minutes to live. Kinda doesn't jibe. You make a distinction in your post between cargo fire and lithium battery fire--how do you know what you have? Book says don't go look.
Based on onboard fire history (20 minutes max till game over), would the prudent thing be to descend to 1000'agl - no matter where you are, and prepare for ditching/highway/dry lake bed landing? I don't think I want to be at fl250, hoping the fire is going to starve (not possible with lithium) when the 20 minute timer runs out..
Thoughts?
I claim no expertise in fire fighting game plans. Only what I've thought of (after the occasional post nightmare shakes) or crew discussions as you mentioned.
I do make a note of LI battery locations during pre flight. So, I would at least know if they were on board or not. Depending on which system was alerting me, I may be able to identify a specific position(s) involved with the fire and have some idea of whether LI batteries were involved or not. Not much can be done about the possibility of undeclared DG, but we have to start somewhere.
In the absence of known LI batteries, I think I would be more inclined to roll the dice and let the low O2 suppression option on the main deck and/or lower cargo class-E compartments suppression agent get me to a suitable field. I'd caveat that with the fact that I'm damn sure gonna go back and do my best to assess he situation regardless of what the book says. I think the "book" might be saying going back to fight the fire isn't the best options. Going back to look? That seems kind of critical to me. Especially if I need to determine if what I've done so far (main deck suppression/FSS) appears to be working. I've got the rest of my life to figure out the nature of the fire and if it warrants a water or off-field landing. That's a pretty big decision to make blindly when additional info might be fairly easy to obtain.