Originally Posted by
shortspatula
I was having a debate with a friend of mine about false indications and I was wondering what people thought. It's very rare obvoiusly but there's been a couple of instances at our company to have false Engine Fire indications since sometimes the fire detection loops malfunction. It's a memory item to turn the engine off if you have the indication. One time the crew just turned it off right away to find out on the ground it was a false indication. Another crew actually investigated it because they didn't notice anything wrong other than the indiction, no smoke behind them as they turned, smooth running engine etc. What would you do? It's an obvious memory item, but based on your knowledge that they have failed before and if you don't notice anything abnormal should you just blindly turn off a perfectly good engine?
I remember being taught to turn and look for smoke. The problem is there are some pretty horrendous fires that don't make much smoke at all, so this sets you up to think you're not burning when you are. Still, this dumb thing was taught to me. So the OP is probably a brand new and trying to sort wheat from chaff when it comes to advice and instruction.