Way too many "trons", "gizmos" and complicated stuff I believe, Saeed. As you know FIRE is a big deal up there, but we had more latitude in the military and if no "secondaries" (indications) present, we took that into account. In this case however, God knows what they stuff in those cargo holds, so hell yes, I'd do exactly what these guys did!

The captain absolutely made the right call here. He was obviously coasted out on a NAT track when the fire warning occurred. There is no choice but to divert to your nearest suitable airport.

As far as the cargo fire warning system giving a false alarm. I wouldn't be to quick to blame the 787 design on that. I'm sure it uses the same system that Boeing uses on it's other airplanes and they will from time to time give a false alarm.

quote:

Originally posted by surestrike:
The captain absolutely made the right call here. He was obviously coasted out on a NAT track when the fire warning occurred. There is no choice but to divert to your nearest suitable airport.

As far as the cargo fire warning system giving a false alarm. I wouldn't be to quick to blame the 787 design on that. I'm sure it uses the same system that Boeing uses on it's other airplanes and they will from time to time give a false alarm.

if and there is a big if that plane has been diverted mid crossing there are some other airports scenarios to divert before Glasgow unless LOT didnt want to loose the ETOPS certification with a mid divert or get a review by European authority.

quote:

Originally posted by medved:
if and there is a big if that plane has been diverted mid crossing there are some other airports scenarios to divert before Glasgow unless LOT didnt want to loose the ETOPS certification with a mid divert or get a review by European authority.

Sorry,

What? I'm not following what you are trying to say here.

quote:

Originally posted by surestrike:

quote:

Originally posted by medved:
if and there is a big if that plane has been diverted mid crossing there are some other airports scenarios to divert before Glasgow unless LOT didnt want to loose the ETOPS certification with a mid divert or get a review by European authority.

Sorry,

What? I'm not following what you are trying to say here.

the article said it was diverded mid route so around 4 hours flying there is better option than glasgow as a diversion, when you re flying to europe unless the weather was really bad or bgtl bikf or bgbw.

im dont remember about EROPS /ETOPS certification but that is maybe why they continue up to the continent ...

i hope it s a little clearer now lol?

medved,

The article is misleading. They were not midway across the Atlantic. The article says they were "mid flight" simply meaning I assume they were airborne. If you look at the inflight map included in the article they just off the coast of Great Britain. Glasgow does appear to be the nearest suitable airport.

Also they did not "evacuate" the airplane as stated in the article. They simply deplaned once at Glasgow.

if you have an emergency such as a cargo fire warning you divert to your nearest suitable airport. ETOPs certs are not a factor after you declare an emergency. IN fact NOT immediately continuing to your nearest suitable airport in an emergency would be a major violation.

quote:

Originally posted by surestrike:
medved,

The article is misleading. They were not midway across the Atlantic. The article says they were "mid flight" simply meaning I assume they were airborne. If you look at the inflight map included in the article they just off the coast of Great Britain. Glasgow does appear to be the nearest suitable airport.

Also they did not "evacuate" the airplane as stated in the article. They simply deplaned once at Glasgow.

if you have an emergency such as a cargo fire warning you divert to your nearest suitable airport. ETOPs certs are not a factor after you declare an emergency. IN fact NOT immediately continuing to your nearest suitable airport in an emergency would be a major violation.

Surestrike,
thanks you for the clarification.

Phil

You never know what's in the bag pit. In my 28 years as an A&P mechanic, I've personally had a). a strange smell in the cabin incident that turned out to be propane from somebody's camp stove traveling as checked luggage, and b). two incidents involving suitcases full of matchbooks that managed to light off in flight. It seems there are people out there that collect matchbooks... and deem it necessary to take their collections with them when they travel. These were all before the ValueJet crash in the mid 90's that prompted the requirement for cargo smoke detection and suppression.

After the ValueJet crash, new aircraft were required to have this capability built in (some already did- such as the Boeing 757s I worked on), and older airplanes were later retrofitted with systems. As you might imagine, adding smoke detectors to an aircraft would be very complicated and expensive (even a 737 has over 40 miles of electrical wire already)...so a company developed an add on system for older planes that didn't require wiring. The smoke detector units in the baggage compartments were individually battery powered, and communicated with the central monitoring unit by radio signals. Each smoke detector transmits a digital code that has the serial number of the detector unit, the battery condition, and whether there's smoke present. The monitor knew where the particular detector was located by it's serial number, and would sound the alarm if smoke was detected. This worked great... until you pulled into a gate close enough to another plane with the same system so that the system on one plane started receiving signals from the other plane... which would confuse the monitor because it was receiving information from detectors who's serial numbers the monitor didn't recognise... which would make the unit think it had failed and quit working....

It was a lot easier being a mechanic twenty years ago....

Porosonik.