Yes there's obvious potential motive for other parties to slander the CA, not ruling that out by any means. I was a proponent of the fire theory from the outset. But to explain everything with a fire, a lot of stars have to line up.

 

I agree with John completely, and I have to say his posts have been really excellent. Read every word of them and take heed!

As for Malaysia, look at the timing from departure. Matches several other Li events...

 

Good discussions. I put some of the responses into a train of thought (777 cargo specific):

If you get a Main Cargo Fire warning, you have to take the most conservative action and assume it to be real (even if statistics prove it more likely to be false)

You have no way of knowing whether it is a Li battery fire or not. According to OPs article, "While the fact that a fire might be caused by Lithium batteries does not change most of the recommendations, it can force a situation where the ONLY option is an immediate landing or ditching."

Given two options, fly at FL250 for what could be more than an hour, or descend and prepare to ditch, the conservative pilot would have to assume the worst and prepare to ditch.

Thoughts?

 

You sound like you're springloaded to ditch. You've already indicated that you want to fly down to 1,000 and stay there, ready to ditch, but that if you find it was a false alarm, then you'll climb back to altitude and continue on your way. You've got fuel for that?

There is zero advantage to loitering at 1,000. Fuel burn is higher. Fire activity is more aggressive. True airspeed is slower. You're making slower progress toward a boat, island, ETP alternate, or whatever.

If you're made the decision to ditch, you've made it at altitude, and you're not going to dive to 1,000', run checklists, evaluate, think about it, see if it's a false alarm, then ditch. If you truly need to ditch, you're going to be ditching from FL350; you're going straight there and ditching. Or you're going to 250 and making a beeline for your ETP alternate, then ditching from 250 if it becomes necessary.

If you go to 1,000, it's not a matter of sorting it out, seeing if it's a false alarm, then pressing on when you decide it wasn't so bad after all. If it wasn't so bad after all, you should never have gone there, period. If it is so bad, you're going straight there from altitude, and it will go fast.

I'm not sure why you keep posting the same question again and again, and saying let's discuss it (again). I'm having a hard time understand why you'd try to do these things.

 

I think that you are vastly overestimating your chances of surviving a ditching in the open ocean.

 

This. Your chances of surviving a ditching in the open ocean are about as good as surviving a large lithium-ion battery fire. You might as well follow a published checklist rather than improvise because you have a hunch that hanging out at FL250 for a while will negatively impact a possible ditching.