It's a little hard yet to say whether the
"failures" were as a result of the checklist
or the progressive
disabling of systems by the elec initiated fire. It however reinforces
my belief that the ongoing,
discretionary, time-consuming, trouble-shooting smoke
checklist MUST be discarded and
manufacturers must incorporate a "fall-back"
electrics selection that will inert the majority
of the normal electrics and revert to a
"virgin"
bus that has on it, very simply, the "get-you-home" items.
At least in this way:
a. everyone lives
b. expensive time-consuming rescue
efforts, salvage and subsequent
crash investigations are avoided.
c. The problem is immediately apparent and thereby fixable (if they
wish they can power the normal electrics up again on the ground
and just see where the inflight fire would have gone). Other
similar jets won't then be operating for many months (years?)
whilst the deadly glitch is uncovered (with all the abiding
concerns
of a fearful public and crews). DFDR/CVR data will still be
available for trouble-shooting. The uncertainty of a PROBABLE
CAUSE finding will be avoided.
d. Fewer people would be afraid of flying
if it was known
that fire-in-the-air was now less of a wild card (despite
being by far the worst aerial prospect short of total
structural failure).
e. You could perhaps then conscionably afford to live with Kapton, its
variants and even the metalized mylar sound blankets (until the
aircraft
go out of service).
f. Insurance underwriters and
actuaries would be happier because the risks would
diminish. Airline and manufacturer's accountants would be able to
justify premium reductions.
g. There'd be fewer diversions at the least hint of a "dark brown
smell" that is to
say that:
h. Airline crews would have more
confidence about this dire emergency
that is of greater risk to them because it affects every day of
their
working lives.
i. Particular aircraft (and therefore airlines) won't get a bad name
because of accidents (and the inevitable other disclosures of a
probing
investigation).
j. Airlines that comply are seen by
passengers as being very
responsible and safety conscious.
k. Expensive court cases that enrich lawyers, stoke premiums
and provoke primal fears (fire and flying) would be minimized.
l. Manufacturers that offered such
an option (or retro-fit kit) would
have a distinct commercial advantage because of their public
image (at
an insignificant cost in terms of weight, complexity,
maintainability
and justifiability).
m. Presently mooted Kapton wiring health monitoring systems may prove
unnecessary.
n. Geriatric jets may thereby be given a new
lease of life (at least
from the wiring integrity point of view)
o. Fuel dumping may not then always prove urgently necessary
and this can be important when enroute alternate weather
is lousy (i.e. when holding off or pressing on to a distant
div or destination may be required or prudent).
p. Once the normal electrics go OFF,
experience has been that any elec
fire will fizzle out (or be easily doused). crews are then
in a better
position to communicate and back each other up (i.e. smoke
masks can
come off, intercom's not necessary, peripheral vision is
restored).
Fire-extinguishers are far more effective on a fire that is
minus the
stoking electrics. But whenever the fire is worsening the
pilots are
restricted in their movement - both by their oxygen
umbilicals and a
checklist that bans them from leaving their seats. Who
fights the fire
with the handheld then?
BUT ABOVE ALL BECAUSE
q. Crews would have a definitive operational directive rather than
agonizing about diverting rapidly, ditching, rushing to land overweight
in a crippled configuration, proceeding with or "holding" the
existing
trouble-shooting smoke checklists (whilst perilously waiting to see if
things are going to get worse/improve/stay the same).
r. The likelihood of a mid-oceanic SR111
type emergency
carrying out an intentional (perhaps unnecessary) ditching
with great loss of life would be much reduced. The
ditchability of large underwing turbofans?-------They’re
not a survivable ditching proposition -so it’s another
strong case for adopting the Virgin Bus as a
preferred alternative to allowing catastrophic fires
to develop.
s. Passengers are less likely to panic if, when all their lights go
out, they realize that the crews are erring on the side of caution and
not toying with their lives via an Emperor Nero like fiddle with
busses,
avionics, circuit-breakers, smoke/elec/air switches, hand-held fire
extinguishers, EVAS vision maintenance devices, below floor E/E bay
visitations, consultations on Company freqs, wading through manuals and
schematics etc etc. In the post SR111 climate just think for a moment
about the possibility (and certainly the effect) of a panic-stricken
(inebriated or not?) pax invading the cockpit -or for that matter,
general panic.
t. Passengers are also going to be reassured
that their pilots
aren't going to be knocked out by ingestion of toxic gases
that sneak up on them whilst they're busy trouble-shooting.
Beyond theories on hardware causes, it goes without saying
that the toxicological results of the flight-crew post-mortems
may confirm the human vulnerability factor. Superimposed upon
the hardware deficiencies, the susceptibility of crews to
succumbing to the very toxic gases in electrical smoke might
indicate that incident survivability is much lower than previously thought.
u. Crew uncertainty can be avoided by airlines mandating this basic
survival configuration for whenever the smoke detectors go off (for
cause) or a pilot or F/A reports a smoke/smell or fire whose source
cannot be immediately determined and quelled. In this way professional
crews no longer have the option of an adventurous (but foolhardy)
trouble-shooting checklisting exercise - and they need not fear
ridicule nor
criticism for doing the right thing as per their Standard Operating
Procedure. Simulator drills are likely to be more definitive than very
airy-fairy and open-endedly inconclusive (as they are at present).
v. The very nature of electrical emergencies (as
manifested by smoke
in the cockpit or cabin) is that it can be a bottomless pit of
possibilities - none of which are likely to have been envisaged by the
designers (as evidenced by the MD11 smoke/elec switch design and
function). Batteries are vulnerable to being flattened by a progressive
electrical wiring malfunction such as a massive short. The ability
to continue IMC operation for even a short period may be compromised.
w. Reliance upon automated systems (such as in the MD11) to detect,
trouble-shoot and rectify electrical problems is akin to putting
your
faith in a fire engine that is itself on fire. Once electrical
system
integrity is compromised the whole system must be suspect.
The latest info I have is that the investigators
are thoroughly confused by the revelations of the
DFDR and its timelines. They have decided that a
lot of the data on the DFDR has been corrupted by
the electrical malfunction (i.e. a lot of the events
on the DFDR didn't really happen). That is one of
the really devilish things about electrical malfunctions
- they throw everything into a spiked anomalous
frenzy and such devices as the DFDR begin to tell lies.
Electric jets are just
not able to operate with a "total electrics" so any problems
must be nipped in the bud, once they're evident, via a reversion
to a
previously dormant "virgin bus" -or a repeat of SR111's
outcome must
always be a possibility.
x. Families of victims would be less frustrated
by the apparently
avoidable consequences of the present state of affairs.(because there'd
be fewer victims and more evidence that all concerned had addressed the
problem of fire-in-the-air and had genuinely done all that's humanly
possible -rather than pay lip-service to a real problem that's
unfortunately not yet statistically significant enough to warrant the
expenditure).
y. Two man crews can cope much better if the situation doesn't
develop. That is because, if it does, one of the likely results is
incapacitation of at least one (or perhaps both) pilot(s). It's always
possible too, let us not forget, that a cockpit fire can cripple the
pilots' oxy systems (hoses, regulators or bottles). The next most likely
happenstance is a loss-of-control caused by pilots trying to fly partial
panel off of poorly positioned (and widely separated) standby analogue
instruments whilst semi-asphyxiated, distracted, suffering direct (and
peripheral) vision smoke impairment compounded by unfamiliar cockpit
emergency flood lighting.
If you cannot
follow the logic, write me and I'll try to resolve your
doubts. The philosophy is just as applicable to the
military. Another
subject worth thinking about is the next generation of
DFDR/CVR. My
suggestion is that they should be capable of uploading via
a dedicated
Inmarsat transponder channel and that this should happen
automatically
any time an airliner crew squawks the distress, comms loss
or hijacked
code. There is already discussion of FMS/engine/systems
data being
regularly routed this way for ops management purposes.
Can you think of any other benefits of a
"Virgin Bus"? If so, let me
know. There's still a letter of the
alphabet left.
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