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UPS 747 Dubai Final Report

Old 07-25-2013, 06:36 AM
  #21  
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Originally Posted by ForeverFO View Post
Over and over, we find that a fire inflight is one of the most desperate situations imaginable. And the biggest lesson to take from all of them:

1) Be sure you have 100% O2
2) Land that puppy IMMEDIATELY, as in NOW, NO DELAY, screw comm, point it at the nearest suitable airport, tune 121.5, squawk 7700, tune the ILS if available, and LAND.

If you can do checklists, great. Do them while you are flying to a runway.

RIP gents.
100% Agree.....

The Valujet accident got me thinking about the above many years ago.
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Old 07-25-2013, 06:39 AM
  #22  
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If you think you can put out a lithium battery fire by starving it for oxygen or shooting halon into it, you are wasting your time. It contains its own oxidizer.

Immediate landing or ditching is really the only option. On average you have about 17 minutes to get it done.


http://777cheatsheets.com/resources/Lithium_Battery.pdf

Last edited by jungle; 07-25-2013 at 06:54 AM.
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Old 07-25-2013, 10:14 AM
  #23  
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Originally Posted by savall View Post
As for the landing at a closer airport, I wonder if the situation would have been different if it were daytime. The fact that it was completely dark really can't have helped. They did make it back to Dubai though, but were apparently too high. Very unfortunate set of circumstances. Does anyone know the outcome with the shipper ?
Tough to say with all that was happening with all the systems malfunctions if a "normal" approach profile could have been flown.

I didn't read the full report, but I thought it released shortly after that during the go around from the high position, the ground speed was somewhere around 300 kts. At the time of impact somewhere around 250. Can't recall the exact numbers.

Along the lines of SwissAir and the National 744, it was simply a situation where the odds of winning were slim to none.
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Old 07-25-2013, 12:47 PM
  #24  
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I was flying the MD11 F/O in 1998, when Swiss Air 111 crashed. Next time I went through recurrent we flew their profile, but of course we knew what was coming, so we 'made it' into Halifax.

They might have also made it if they had done a much faster descent, forgot about dumping gas and doing smoke elimination checklists. As this report shows (clipped from Wikipedia), they were 30 miles out but still at 21,000'.

The similarities to the UPS 747 are striking, in that both Captains were out of their seats, one was trying to fight the fire, the UPS guy was looking for O2 I guess. We were told Swiss Air had about 17 minutes to get it on the ground, but then they went out to dump gas and lost control when the fire entered the cockpit while they were deep into checklists.

Our training changed due to this accident. We were told, rather than trying to find the source of the smoke, and/or fight the fire, just LAND immediately, if there's an airport anywhere nearby.

As an aside, I had the UPS 747's copilot's family on board one night from ATL-Dubai, to claim his remains. The Chief Pilot was with them, he came up to our cockpit and told us about the family being on board. He also said their cockpit was filled with smoke and they could not see the mode control panel or the radios, so they were truly flying blind. He also told us UPS had removed all cockpit doors, to save weight!

If you read the UPS report, it says the control cables were burned up and there was very little control of the elevator via the yoke, only the autopilot could control it through servos in the tail. Even if they had control through the yoke, with the cockpit filled with smoke, to the point where you cannot see the instruments, at night, you are pretty much screwed.

Here's the Wiki report on the Swiss Air accident.

Flight and crash[edit]

The flight took off from New York's John F. Kennedy Airport at 20:18 Eastern Standard Time (00:18 UTC). Beginning at 20:33 EST (00:33 UTC) and lasting until 20:47 (00:47 UTC), the aircraft experienced an unexplained thirteen-minute radio blackout. The cause of the blackout, or if it was related to the crash, is unknown.

At 22:10 Atlantic Time (01:10 UTC), cruising at FL330 (approximately 33,000 feet or 10,100 metres), the flight crew—Captain Urs Zimmermann and First Officer Stephan Loew—detected an odor in the cockpit and determined it to be smoke from the air conditioning system, a situation easily remedied by closing the air conditioning vent, which a flight attendant did on Zimmermann's request. Four minutes later, the odor returned and now smoke was visible, and the pilots began to consider diverting to a nearby airport for the purpose of a quick landing. At 22:14 AT (01:14 UTC) the flight crew made a "pan-pan" radio call to ATC Moncton (which handles trans-atlantic air traffic approaching or departing North American air space), indicating that there was an urgent problem with the flight, but not an emergency (denoted by a "Mayday" call) which would imply immediate danger to the aircraft, and requested a diversion to Boston's Logan International Airport, which at that time was 300 nautical miles (560 km) away. ATC Moncton offered the crew a vector to the closer Halifax International Airport in Enfield, Nova Scotia, 66 nm (104 km) away, which Loew accepted. The crew then put on their oxygen masks and the aircraft began its descent. Zimmermann put Loew in charge of the descent while he personally ran through the two Swissair standard checklists for smoke in the cockpit, a process that would take approximately 20 minutes and become a later source of controversy.[8]

At 22:18 AT (01:18 UTC), ATC Moncton handed over traffic control of Swissair 111 to ATC Halifax, since the plane was now going to land in Halifax rather than leave North American air space. At 22:19 AT (01:19 UTC) the plane was 30 nautical miles (56 km) away from Halifax International Airport, but Loew requested more time to descend the plane from its altitude of 21,000 feet (6,400 m). At 22:20 AT (01:20 UTC), Loew informed ATC Halifax that he needed to dump fuel, which ATC Halifax controllers would say later was a surprise considering that the request came so late; dumping fuel is a fairly standard procedure early on in nearly any "heavy" aircraft urgent landing scenario. ATC Halifax subsequently diverted Swissair 111 toward St. Margaret's Bay, where they could more safely dump fuel but still be only around 30 nautical miles (56 km) from Halifax.

In accordance with the Swissair checklist entitled "In case of smoke of unknown origin", the crew shut off the power supply in the cabin, which caused the recirculating fans to shut off. This caused a vacuum which induced the fire to spread back into the cockpit. This also caused the autopilot to shut down; at 22:24:28 AT (01:24:28 UTC), Loew informed ATC Halifax that "we now must fly[...]manually."[9] Seventeen seconds later, at 22:24:45 AT (01:24:45 UTC), Loew informed ATC Halifax that "Swissair 111 heavy is declaring emergency",[9] repeated the emergency declaration one second later,[9] and over the next 10 seconds stated that they had descended to "between 12,000 and 5,000 feet" and once more declared an emergency.[9] The flight data recorder stopped recording at 22:25:40 AT (01:25:40 UTC), followed one second later by the cockpit voice recorder. The doomed plane briefly showed up again on radar screens from 22:25:50 AT (01:25:50 UTC) until 22:26:04 AT (01:26:04 UTC). Its last recorded altitude was 9,700 feet. Shortly after the first emergency declaration, the captain can be heard leaving his seat to fight the fire, which was now spreading to the rear of the cockpit; the Swissair volume of checklists was later found fused together, as if someone had been trying to use them to fan back flames.[8] The captain did not return to his seat, and whether he was killed from the fire or asphyxiated by the smoke is not known. However, physical evidence provides a strong indication that First Officer Loew may have survived the inferno only to die in the eventual crash; instruments show that Loew continued trying to fly the now-crippled aircraft, and gauges later indicated that he shut down engine two approximately one minute before impact,[8] implying he was still alive and at the controls until the aircraft struck the ocean at 22:31 AT (01:31 UTC), at an estimated speed of 345 miles per hour. The aircraft disintegrated on impact,[10] killing all on board instantly.[11] The crash location was approximately

44°24′33″N 63°58′25″WCoordinates: 44°24′33″N 63°58′25″W, with 300 metres' uncertainty.[

Last edited by Timbo; 07-25-2013 at 01:05 PM.
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Old 07-25-2013, 02:00 PM
  #25  
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Timbo,

If you get a chance to read the accident report of SwissAir, there's the hypothetical/"what if" of going to YHZ immediately.

IIRC, per the timeline, at best they would have been about short final, succumbing to the smoke, trying to land an overweight MD-11 with hydraulic issues (Slats/flaps/brakes, etc). Of course, there's still a chance.

But the only difference might have been a giant smoking hole in the ground with everybody dead vs. plummeting into the ocean with the same result.
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Old 07-25-2013, 02:02 PM
  #26  
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That's difficult to read on a few different levels. There are few emergency scenarios that worry me to the point of thinking I have only seconds...fire is one of them.

I find myself doing the usual stare out the window thinking, "where would I put it down right NOW, if I had to." Always have, always will. This is, unfortunately, on more incident that I will think about while doing so.
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Old 07-25-2013, 02:16 PM
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I've never understood the immediate need to takeover especially in the FLs? I mean US Air in the Hudson, sure a takeover is necessary due to being that close to the ground and with the FO's lack of time-in-type. But even with a fire warning in the FLs? Once the CA has taken over as PF, the "thinking and solving" role is up to the PM. Or the CA can try and do both, but his workload has increased by taking over PF duties.

Maybe a Delta pilot can chime in, I recall regarding a Delta newsletter of some type which talked specifically of the merits of letting the FO fly the plane and the CA taking over the PM role which would allow him/her to better analyze the emergency situation and come up with a game plan. Personally, I think it makes sense. Now obviously if there are flight control issues then the PIC can takeover and do what's best. Ditto for takeover when close to the ground or when the FO's time in type is low.

Now I'm not saying this happened because of taking over from the FO. If the CA has more time in type, more experience overall, then maybe he's better off in the analyzing/solving/PM role of things when things go bad in the FLs? Just an opinion.
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Old 07-25-2013, 02:22 PM
  #28  
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Originally Posted by John Carr View Post
Timbo,

If you get a chance to read the accident report of SwissAir, there's the hypothetical/"what if" of going to YHZ immediately.

IIRC, per the timeline, at best they would have been about short final, succumbing to the smoke, trying to land an overweight MD-11 with hydraulic issues (Slats/flaps/brakes, etc). Of course, there's still a chance.

But the only difference might have been a giant smoking hole in the ground with everybody dead vs. plummeting into the ocean with the same result.

Well, like I said, we did the exact Swiss Air scenario in the MD11 sim for a year after this accident. We were able to get it on the ground, but only by doing an emergency descent and going directly to the field while dumping gas all the way in.

BUT...we KNEW it was coming, and we KNEW what the outcome would be if we didn't go direct and descend immediately. We even hacked our clocks to see how long it would take. 15-16 minutes, even if you know it's coming and you go direct.

Hindsight is 20-20, and I doubt any of us would have survived if we had done all the smoke elimination checklists, etc. like these guys were doing. That's why they changed our training to; Declare an emergency and LAND NOW, overweight if need be, but get it on the ground and evacuate.

My concern these days is, in our ETOPs flying, are way out there, over water, or over the North Pole on some of our routes. There is no airport, or even land, within an hour, let alone 16 minutes.
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Old 07-25-2013, 03:22 PM
  #29  
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Originally Posted by jungle View Post
If you think you can put out a lithium battery fire by starving it for oxygen or shooting halon into it, you are wasting your time. It contains its own oxidizer.

Immediate landing or ditching is really the only option. On average you have about 17 minutes to get it done.


http://777cheatsheets.com/resources/Lithium_Battery.pdf

Would it be a good idea for all of the cargo pilot unions to get together in unity and make a statement to their companies saying that lithium batteries will not be allowed on airplanes anymore? Maybe barging or trucking them is a safer alternative?
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Old 07-25-2013, 05:47 PM
  #30  
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Shippers of some of the lithium battery cargo loadedin Hong Kong did not properly declare these shipments
So if you ban them do you really think there won't be any onboard?
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