Free Flight, Free Speech

Here we may just have lost our first a380.

An Asiana Airbus A380-800, registration HL7626 performing flight OZ-201 from Los Angeles,CA (USA) to Seoul (South Korea) with 353 people on board, was enroute at FL360 about 710nm southsoutheast of Anchorage,AK (USA), 820nm west of Vancouver,BC (Canada) and 1460nm northnorthwest of Los Angeles when the crew received a cargo smoke indication. The crew decided to turn around and return to Los Angeles for a safe landing about 3:40 hours later and about 7 hours after departure.

http://avherald.com/h?article=49ea07fc&opt=0

Standard procedure with smoke is to land at the nearest suitable airport. As i understand it, even the ECAM tells to land ASAP. How on earth were these sky gods able to assess the severity of what was happening in the cargo hold, and decide to comfortably fly twice the distance of the nearest suitable airport all the way back to LAX? All the mentioned airports have maybe not facilities for the plane, but suitable runways and surely a place on a cargo ramp for them to park on. So they all fall in the category suitable.

The beggars were sure as hell lucky the smoke detector was at fault this time.

Kind regards, Vincent

Air Asia has really to do something about their training. Urgently!

That was Asiana. Air Asia doesn't have A380s. I can see at a glance it's easy to confuse the two..

that said, I looked up Achorage and that was at.... ALASKA??? Assuming that the news was correct , they decided that they have a FIRE on board and they took it some several latitudes to back to their airport of origin!

Is there a way to determine if there was actually a fire on board from the cockpit other than alarm? Cabin Crew access? CCTV perhaps? I'm thinking that they figured it was a false alarm at some point, but decided they can't continue flying with a faulty fire alarm in case a real fire does happen. Hence they return to LAX. I HOPE this is the case.

HJ1an wrote:I HOPE this is the case.

+1

Hi HJ1an,

Which part of "land ASAP" did they not understand? They could not find ASAP in their airport database?

Now they have decided to fly 700 miles extra from an official Airbus a380 listed alternate airport. If they are prepared to take that risk, they could as well just fly on to destination.

Edit:
Just to show you how extremely serious anything having to do with (potential) fire is, just check out the avherald on the cases of smoke indication (even when spurious) or the highly subjective thinking to faintly smell smoke. Each plane is down within 30 minutes, about the time to land from cruise. Now this plane was a bit further from it's nearest alternate, but it should have gone there and not fly 700 miles extra. No discussion possible. We are not talking my opinion here, but the fact that their checklist told them land ASAP. Something which every other pilot in the world understands extremely well, no matter how unsure the fire is.

Kind regards, Vincent

The article was pretty short, so we do not know exactly what went on there. Perhaps there was an extra crew member who could go take a look somehow. Or perhaps they are as badly trained as you say. While, historically South Korean crews has shown many of the latter to be the case, I'm just listing the other possibilities .

Hi HJ1an,

Why do you make up fairy tales by coming up with maybe they did this, maybe they did that, maybe, maybe, maybe.... Do you get that stuff from bad movies or so?

Most cargo compartments are not accessible, and if they are, they are covered with carpet, seats, etc... All for good reason, because you do not go and have a look in a cargo compartment where fire is suspected. If the pilots authorized such action, they are even bigger fools then they are already by not landing ASAP.

Fire suppression in cargo compartments works as follows:

- ventilation valves close
- a large dose of halon is released in an effort to kick out the fire
- due to small leakages in the compartment, the concentration halon is maintained by a secondary halon bottle for a limited amount of time

Some aircraft even do this automatically. This does not guarantee that a fire is extinguished, it only buys you some time to land ASAP. Even four engine aircraft have ETOPS requirements to reach an airport before the secondary halon bottle is empty.

And now you suggest to have a cosy look in the compartment (if at all accessible)? Destroying the entire containment strategy of the aircraft?

Edit:
Let me answer your next maybe's in advance.

Maybe they did not have the automated halon release.
Maybe they could access the cargo compartment before they released the halon.

Answer: You do not loose time on such nonsense and allow a possible fire to develop into a full blaze. No, you initiate the halon procedure immediately. And there is no checklist item telling you to loose time first, by trying to have a look.

I can come up with a lot of maybe's too, like maybe they were scared to land at a new airport for them. But i do not. Maybe's are useless distractions from getting to correct answers. Please do not make up those fairy tales, but say things if you know them for fact. Or at least have maybe's with a realistic probability. The having a look story has the probability of them doing 3 hand stands and flap their arms 4 times in order to definitively protect the aircraft from fire.

Edit2:
And no, there are no cargo hold cameras. What did you want to see on them? The first cargo container? Apart from that it only causes more doubt for pilots. There are clear procedures for a smoke alarm now. If a pilot does not see any signs of fire on camera, he may make fatal decisions, by not reacting to the smoke alarm.

Kind regards, Vincent

Firstly, I can pretty much 'make up fairy tales' as much as I want. I'm not an accident investigator, far from it. This is after all thejabberwocky.net and not seriousaviationaccidentinvestigatorsdiscussingseriouscases.net. The worst harm from what I type here would probably be that some hollywood producer see it and turn it into a movie and I don't get a single cent from it.

Sure, I don't fully understand the situation from that news piece. We all don't. Again, what we get is just from news. What I am trying to do is gain insight on the blank side. As far as I know, I am free to do this. Mind you I'm not trying to defend them, just filling in a picture of the blanks, even if it is nonsense for some entertainment. Come on, I am bored at work sometimes.

I know that if a plane is on fire it is a serious matter. But what made them keep going on? Simply saying bad training is not the only cause, there's a lot of things going on we will probably never know. Just like Pilot 101 : Don't Stall Plane, and yet - the past few years we see exactly those things. Why? Bad training is probably one.. but then, that's not just it there are so many things missing from there. Did a GoPro get stuck in the joystick? Did over 50 passengers suddenly get and up decided to all run to and wait at the rear toilet because the one at the front stank and the airline food gave them diarrhea? Did pilot pull the handbrake?

HJ1an wrote: I don't fully understand the situation from that news piece. We all don't

Nope, you! don't. This article contains every fact necessary to reveal a major error. No need to write 3 pages full about it. For pilots this article is crystal clear: these two facts never go together in any SOP, checklist or ECAM message.

- smoke indication (no matter how spurious)
- taking a detour of 700 miles

HJ1an wrote:But what made them keep going on?

You do not want to know that. Investigation can only reveal neglecting SOP's, checklists and ECAM messages, all telling them to go to the nearest alternate and prepare to ditch underway. Finding out can only worsen their case. There is a reason why the airline keeps silent about this case.

HJ1an wrote:Mind you I'm not trying to defend them

Yes you are. You only come up with alleviating maybe's. I did not see a maybe like: they were scared to go to PANC because they deem themselves unfit to land at an airport where they have not been before.

HJ1an wrote:As far as I know, I am free to do this

Yes you are free to do this. And someone else is equally free to show the nonsensicalness of the maybe's in relation to real aviation. I see you even took the liberty to prove it yourself in your final words.

Anyway, i guess we'll always stay in this status quo, where you come up with those unfounded maybe's, and i run on facts and have to prove they can impossibly be the case.

Kind regards, Vincent

KL-666 wrote:Nope, you! don't. This article contains every fact necessary to reveal a major error. No need to write 3 pages full about it. For pilots this article is crystal clear: these two facts never go together in any SOP, checklist or ECAM message.

- smoke indication (no matter how spurious)
- taking a detour of 700 miles

Well, I'll admit I just scanned through article quickly. By smoke indication, is it a terminology that this it only came from instruments, or does it mean in a more casual sense (ie. the cabin crew called up saying someone smelled smoke)?

KL666 wrote:Yes you are. You only come up with alleviating maybe's. I did not see a maybe like: they were scared to go to PANC because they deem themselves unfit to land at an airport where they have not been before.

As I've pointed out, I'm equally shocked they went all the way back to LAX. Training says to do otherwise, but sometimes people just do things. I just want to know why. "Maybe"s fill the space and pass the time.

There was a local news report many years ago about some nut chasing down a motorcyclist and ramming him and his pillion rider injuring or killing them? (can't recall). Everybody wonder why this psychotic nut was doing that. Turns out, the report was half the story - the rider had stolen a handbag from the "nutcase", and she gave chase on a mission to put them out of their misery. So yeah, nowadays everytime I read something, I always want to know the other half of the story - that's just me.