Hello John Burke,

I agree that my question could be construed as one that would be asked by a person whose interest was to create a situation that would be hazardous to the flight crew.

I am writing about the McDonald Douglas MD-11F and my research has shown that there have been a number of incidents that have occurred when air freight companies have been carrying hazardous materials, such as lithium batteries, and a defect has caused a fire and the subsequent loss of the aircraft and the life of the crew members.

I found in my research that a new design of lithium batteries has eliminated the risk of fire as they can be damaged without them bursting into flames. This is good news for those people who have received serious burns from a phone carried in their pockets when the battery has burst into flames, but in particular, from air freighters. Although in those cases, loss of life has been limited to the air crew, as bad as that is, it would be a more serious disaster if a passenger aircraft succumbed to a serious fire from defective lithium batteries (or other potentially hazardous sources)

I wanted to know if automated fire fighting systems could handle such a fire, and if not, could the crew of a MD-11F actually make some effort, and take the initiative, to save their lives by utilizing a hand held fire extinguisher to deal with the emergency.

Cheers, Peter