Listed under NTSB 830.5 are "In-flight fires." Are they referring only to engine fires, or do electrical fires/wing fires/etc fall under this?

 

I believe that "in-flight fires" is self explanatory. It doesn't make any difference what type.

I've been admitted to the bar....the one with the l-o-n-g oak top and a lot of glasses around it, but I'd bet a lot of Budvar that any fire is to be reported.

G'Day Mates

 

Dosen't matter where it is fire is fire and needs to be reported.

 

Whiskey:

The central premise is that if it happened to one airplane, could it happen to another?

Say you get an electrical fire in the radio stack. You shut the radio off, land. You report it; they decide it was a fluke---wire came loose on the back of the radio.

Some other guy gets a radio fire and they find the antenna cable was chaffing the power cable. They investigate other airplanes like it; they too have a problem. An Airworthiness Directive goes out for all operators to inspect.

At a company I used to work for, a King Air was just levelling-off when the airplane pitched-up at about 2-gs. It started shaking so bad the pilot thought the tail was going to break off. He limped in and landed; a steel rod that goes to the trim-tab had failed due to corrosion. (Under the elevator). It allowed the trim-tab to whip like a flag in the wind, which moved the elevator correspondingly.

It happened as he was doing 120 knots, and accelerating. If it had happened a few minutes later, at cruise speed, and he might not have survived.

It was reported to the Feds, and an inspection order went out a day or two later for all C-90s of that vintage.