Uncontrolled Engine Fire Light Turbine Twin

[mcrit]

We were discussing this scenario at work.  I thought the membership here at Scudrunners might want to chime in:

You are in a light turbine twin (Cheyenne, Conquest, C90) which has had an engine fire.  You've shut down the engine and discharged the extinguisher, however the warning persists and you can see flames in the nacelle.  Do you:

a.) head to the nearest airport and hope for the best;
b.) land on a road or similar if available; or
c.) dive to get an airspeed where turbulent flow extinguishes the flame?

[Blinder]

You get on the ground as soon as possible.

You have about ten minutes from the start of an uncontained fire until control or structural failure.

[Chris]

You'll be on the ground soon, one way or another. Better get there under your own control before the wing departs the plane.


I don't know if a dive would kill the fire... Pistons have a lot of open area to let air in. Turbines not so much. Plus you'll be loading a potentially weakened structure when you pull out of the dive.

[Chuck Ellsworth]

I would opt for a landing or controlled crash as soon as possible.

[ScudRunner-d95]

Divert to the nearest airport (suitable or not) get that thing on the ground. Now that being said, haven flown up north there isn't much in the way of choice, at that point we will all be reading about your next move in the CADORS or TSB report.

[David MacRay]

I can see flames so the turbulent air flow should be able to do it's thing. I'm going for the dive and looking for the nearest flat open area / airports.

[Liquid Charlie]

It's a very bad day when something like that happens. Chances are that most fires in a turbine(obviously not all but most) are a result of a [font=helvetica neue][size=13px]cataclysmic engine failure and there is more to look after than just a fire. Yup proceed to the best possible place where you can have a chance to survive the arrival. Can you say "Swiss Air" and "Air Canada" - while they were cabin fires the end results are usually the same. [/size][/font]


I was at an ALPA awards dinner and one crew was honoured for getting a commuter jet on the ground in Fargo from 350 to evacuated in less than 5 minutes. They were lucky to be overhead. It turned out to be a crazy F/A who actually lighted a fire in the lav - wonder if the captain didn't perform to standard at their layover -- damn.