hlminx 301 Posted September 9, 2015 Report Share Posted September 9, 2015 BA 777 engine bursts into flames while taxiing at McCarran. Thankfully everyone escaped and there were only 2injuries http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3227162/British-Airways-plane-bursts-flames-Las-Vegas-McCarran-Airport-off.html 1 Link to post Share on other sites
allardjd 1,853 Posted September 9, 2015 Report Share Posted September 9, 2015 The boys at PPRUNE say (and a photo shows it) that it was a "massive un-contained engine failure" and it was on the takeoff roll, not while taxiing as some of the news articles that are coming out are saying. One photo, from a distance, appears to show the bottom of the nacelle pretty much shredded. Great job by the crew of aborting the take-off and very little delay in ordering an evacuation. Sometimes captains are a little hesitant to order that because there will inevitably be some minor injuries from using the slides and there's also sometimes caution about disembarking pax into fire and smoke. Sure can't fault the crew in any way on this one. Some pax, predictably, chose to endanger those behind them by taking the time to collect their carry-on bags and haul them along. Engines are said to be some variation of GE90. Early times - some of this may change... John Link to post Share on other sites
wain 879 Posted September 9, 2015 Report Share Posted September 9, 2015 Just saw this on the news...lucky they were still on the ground... couldve been more than the 14 injured otherwise...seems good quick work by crew and emergency services... Link to post Share on other sites
dodgy-alan 1,587 Posted September 9, 2015 Report Share Posted September 9, 2015 More pics and video here guys, Looks like the BA crew did a fine job as one would expect. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-34193767?ocid=socialflow_facebook Link to post Share on other sites
hurricanemk1c 195 Posted September 9, 2015 Report Share Posted September 9, 2015 Is G-VIIO, 777-236ER new in January 1999 with GE90-85B engines. At least everyone got out reasonably OK (as expected) Link to post Share on other sites
Kevin Firth 114 Posted September 9, 2015 Report Share Posted September 9, 2015 I will echo John's comments above about the absolutely stupid passengers who thought it necessary to stop and collect their hand luggage :O Unbelievable....!! K 2 Link to post Share on other sites
stu7708 244 Posted September 9, 2015 Report Share Posted September 9, 2015 And here's the ATC-transmission from the incident.. Swiftly and efficiently handled I must say.. EDIT: And I must say I was a bit surprised they decided to evacuate on the Port side considering where the fire was... but I guess it's harder to use just one side on a Wide body aircraft... Link to post Share on other sites
Captain Coffee 2,030 Posted September 9, 2015 Report Share Posted September 9, 2015 Scary shite...good job by crew. Of course, it is Pilot error as explained in the article: "But Mr Henkey had never had an accident while flying before, neighbour Roger Beale said. 'He has never ever had any incidents in his whole career. Just recently we were talking about his many years as a pilot and he had said nothing had ever happened to him.' Silly pilot probably didn't Knock on Wood. I would have happily slid down the fire and smoke side if it meant getting twice as many people off in the same time...wonder if they even have the option to only deploy the slides on one side, do they all Pop Out at the same button push? Or are the controls for the slides at each exit and operated by staff? And ya, wasn't there, and I don't know what the scene was like in the aisles as folks were evacuating, but I could definitely imagine people grabbing their laptop cases while heading down the aisles...especially business travelers with important work on them. There is bound to be some semi panicked "waiting for your turn" time in a scene like that, and the temptation to grab an important piece of luggage to save from assured burning...yeah, it might seem like a priority problem, but as no one was killed, seems no harm no foul as the evidence says "they had time to grab their bags". Last thought...given the weather around the west coast lately, and imagining desert temps in comparison..., stepping off a burning plane onto Las Vegas tarmac would probably have been in increase in temperature. Link to post Share on other sites
allardjd 1,853 Posted September 9, 2015 Report Share Posted September 9, 2015 Humans being what they are, some are always going to try to take their possessions in an emergency evacuation. It's understandable, but still wrong. I doubt any of them had a conscious thought that the delay and additional obstruction they created could have caused someone further from the exit to die, but whether they realized it or thought about it doesn't change the fact that it could have happened that way. Pax are not able to judge how much time is available for everyone to get out of a burning airplane and don't have any moral right to spend some of other people's escape time saving their luggage. Fire generally propagates pretty quickly in an airplane full of fuel. The luggage seen in the photos of the escaped pax was not just purses and small items - we're talking about "wheelie" suitcases that almost had to have come from the overhead bins and could easily have weighed 30 or 40 lbs. The AC was only about half full, so I wonder if everyone would still have gotten out safely if they'd had a full load. No matter how important the stuff on the laptop, it's not more important than someone else's life. I wonder about how a similar situation on the A380 might play out. Airbus met a 5 minute evacuation test, barely, during the certification process, but it was done with company employees who were briefed and "schooled" ahead of time about what they had to do - beyond the usual cabin safety announcement. I suspect in a real emergency, with real pax, emptying a full A380 in five minutes would be a near impossibility and five minutes is a very long time for a burning airliner. The BA crew performed about as perfectly as possible and it seems the airport emergency services did a good and quick job too. Unclear at this point is whether the fire was fuel or engine oil or some of both. It doesn't seem like there was a major fuel tank rupture but the post-mortem will eventually reveal all that. Link to post Share on other sites
dodgy-alan 1,587 Posted September 9, 2015 Report Share Posted September 9, 2015 Looking at pics of the damage, that aircraft is going nowhere wvery soon. They may even decide to scrap it as they did withthe one that had the accident at Heathrow a few years ago. Link to post Share on other sites
brett 2,285 Posted September 9, 2015 Report Share Posted September 9, 2015 All those years with no problems and a split second decision saved all those lives, pretty impressive and he deserve every pat on the back. I differ on the opinion of the passengers that grabbed their bags though, nothing happened luckily but for every bag they had with them it took up space that another person could stand in to get off safely if something did happen. Not to mention if the flames increased, folks might have dropped them and it would have caused a blockage in the aisles. I know the fire looked really bad from the pictures on the ground but I was wondering if they did take off, would the airflow keep the flames to the engine(or even help blow them out with the help or retardant), could they have of circled around to land more safely. Link to post Share on other sites
allardjd 1,853 Posted September 9, 2015 Report Share Posted September 9, 2015 From the PPRUNE dialog... All seem to agree given the age of the aircraft and the amount/nature of the damage, the insurance company will own it soon and will extract what value they can from salvageable parts. They've got a conversation going about whether the slipstream would have kept the fire away from the fuselage if they had gotten airborne. No one seems to KNOW, just a lot of opinion. Given that it was an un-contained engine failure (the crew would not have known about the un-contained part) there's no telling at this early stage what else might have been affected/damaged/disabled by the shrapnel so just as well it happened below V1 and they were required by their procedures to reject the takeoff. If after V1, they would have been similarly constrained to go for it. One respondent from the Las Vegas area claims that there's not much ground anywhere in the area suitable for a forced landing - Nellis AFB was about the only suitable option listed, or returning to KLAS. Terrain, housing and commercial developments are all prevalent in the area and clear flat ground is not. We all know that a 777 can take off and climb (a little) with an engine failure at or above V1 but what we don't know is what else was broken or soon would be because of the fire - a crap shoot at best but the procedures mean the pilots don't have to agonize over that decision - if before VI, reject the takeoff; if after V1, proceed and do your best to bring it back to the/a field in one piece. Concorde didn't make it, but the failure there was a lot different. John Link to post Share on other sites
allardjd 1,853 Posted September 10, 2015 Report Share Posted September 10, 2015 British Airways fire: Jet's suppression system didn't work, source says http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/09/us/las-vegas-british-airways-fire/index.html Not really much info in this article but it's a new angle... John Link to post Share on other sites
allardjd 1,853 Posted September 11, 2015 Report Share Posted September 11, 2015 NTSB: British Airways 777’s left engine case has ‘multiple breaches’ http://atwonline.com/engines/ntsb-british-airways-777-s-left-engine-case-has-multiple-breaches The left GE90 engine on the British Airways Boeing 777 that caught fire on a Las Vegas runway has “multiple breaches of the engine case,” investigators said. ...examination of the 777-200ER’s left engine revealed the engine case breaches “in the area around the high pressure compressor.” NTSB added that investigators recovered “several pieces of the high pressure compressor spool (approximately 7-8 inches in length)” on the Las Vegas McCarren International Airport runway where the British Airways 777 was on a takeoff roll that was aborted when the engine fire started Sept. 8. Link to post Share on other sites
brett 2,285 Posted September 11, 2015 Report Share Posted September 11, 2015 Lots of pressure in that unit I would think, amazing how a small part can cause so much damage. I wonder what maintenance worked on when the plane was delayed. Link to post Share on other sites
allardjd 1,853 Posted September 11, 2015 Report Share Posted September 11, 2015 It usually takes a fairly massive object to breach engine case and nacelle, normally but not always a burst wheel. Turbine wheels are the "hub" upon which the blades are mounted. They are typically doughnut-shaped, fairly beefy and are usually shrunk and keyed on the shaft. They have the female "Christmas Trees" or some other intricate shape machined in their periphery and the individual blades are locked into those. When a turbine wheel bursts it normally comes apart into three segments of around 120 degrees. The photo of the Qantas A380 R-R wheel segment that was recovered looked exactly like that. The wheel segments simply have too much mass to be contained and the industry and the regulators depend on conservative design, good maintenance procedures and post-manufacture and periodic NDE to give a high assurance that wheels won't come apart. In the A380 accident, fire where it wasn't intended to be caused by leaking engine lube oil altered the metallurgical properties of the wheel, causing it to fail. The Sioux City DC-10 had a similar failure which severed all the hydraulic circuits while cutting its way out of the plane. It was found in a farm field months after the accident. John Link to post Share on other sites
dodgy-alan 1,587 Posted September 12, 2015 Report Share Posted September 12, 2015 It looks like that was one very lucky escape, I bet GEs boffins will be crawling all over this one for months, as will BAs engineers and maintainence guys. That engine and its paperwork will come under the minutest scrutiny. BA are well known for being meticulous in their servicing and record keeping, now those records will be pored over looking for clues. 1 Link to post Share on other sites
allardjd 1,853 Posted September 13, 2015 Report Share Posted September 13, 2015 ...with the NTSB looking over their shoulders. The post-mortem of the Sioux City DC-10 accident led to some pretty significant changes in engine materials and methods. In that case, there was a pre-existing flaw in the forging that was overlooked in at least one examination. They found traces of dye penetrant on the fracture surfaces, indicating that at least one NDE should have caught the flaw and somehow missed it. In this case they found pieces of the high-pressure compressor section about eight inches long on the runway. I'm not familiar with the details of the GE90 stack-up but that suggests a multi-stage wheel, axially long enough to carry several rows of blades. That would, if it burst, make for a fairly massive missile, or several, with plenty of kinetic energy to break out of the casing and the nacelle. Still no word whether the fire was fuel, lube oil or both. John 1 Link to post Share on other sites
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