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Fire on the stand at Denver

LittleInch

LittleInch

Petroleum
Mar 27, 2013
22,398
Well this doesn't look like a very good situation. People climbing all over the wing and the plane on fire whilst parked at the stand.

www.bbc.co.uk

Watch: Passengers seen on wing of plane after jet catches fire

Passengers were evacuated with no injuries reported after an American Airlines flight caught fire at Denver International Airport.
www.bbc.co.uk
 
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Looks like the 737 max doesn't have slides on the overwing doors and relies on the flaps being lowered at full flaps. It just shows how strong the wings are with what looks like 40 or more people on top of the wing.

Clearly happened very fast if the pilots couldn't lower the flaps fast enough to allow people to slide off but as there seems to be a fire under the other engine this might turn out to be a good thing....

I must admit the slide of the wing thing always looks rather sketchy to me....
 
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How many times have I heard the stewardess announce;
"We will be flying at a planned altitude of 32,000 feet.
We have six exits, two at the rear, two at the front and two over the wings."
I always thought;
"How comforting to know that if something goes wrong when we are over 5 miles high we can always get out and walk on the wing." grin.
Seriously, falling off of a wing is probably not as bad as breathing toxic vapour.
 
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Those low to ground CRJ900 Wings look good in this scenario. I am sure they are designed to bend inna controlled manner, in that scenario, such that tip dips to ground level for emergency exit from wings? 😏😉

 
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I was on a flight out of Denver within a minute of this happening. Whew.

The disaster is the people on the wing. Were the passengers advised to exit over the wind or did they act out of panic?
 
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TugboatEng said:
I was on a flight out of Denver within a minute of this happening. Whew.

The disaster is the people on the wing. We're the passengers advised to exit over the wind or did they act out of panic?
Click to expand...
My suspicion is that the passengers just decided sitting in a metal tube with a fire and smoke outside wasn't a great place to be and thought anywhere else was better. I'm pretty sure if I was sitting there in the exit row seat that's what I would have done.

Those B737 overwing exits don't have a flight crew sitting close unlike those at the back and front. But it looked like at least one rear exit and slide was deployed.

The wing exit though clearly didn't have full flaps deployed which is the rather sketchy way of sliding off the roof sitting on your arse.

Those steps they brought up were rather short....
 
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Getting the flock out of Dodge when the cabin is filling with smoke or other noxious gases should be a priority; if I were in the wing exit row, opening that door would be my highest priority, particularly is the plane is stationary.
 
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It sounds like the standard procedure is to extend the flaps to full and they can be used to evacuate from the wing. The flight attendants were likely correct to allow passengers onto the wing but the pilot failed to extend the flaps, if the plane was on a condition where the flaps could be extended. I believe the jet bridge was already connected which means both engines were likely off, the APU may or may not have been running, shore power may or may not have been connected.
 
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Not sure the FA were actually in control of that situation....

Difficult to see whether they had actually secured the jet bridge or not.

Basically this would not be allowed on a more modern aircraft where slides deploy which reach down to the ground.

Will be interesting to find out how the plane responds to scores of people walking all ove those "No Step" zones....
 
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LittleInch said:
Those steps they brought up were rather short....
Click to expand...
And parked on the other side of the plane was a mobile luggage conveyor.
Walking down that would have brought passengers very close to the ground.
To bad no-one thought to reposition it.
 
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Ideally, the less improvisation the better.

Having the jet bridge attached or nearly attached adds another layer of complexity as it would block deployment of the slide.
 
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There is an electric motor to extend the flaps but apparently it takes forever.

I guess this is the downside of flying around something certified to standards from 60 years ago, even with the flaps extended , it's an abrupt drop off compared to something that is a bit more modern with slides.

Still, fortunately for Boeing it was an 800 not a Max...
 
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I am pretty sure it's hydraulics for flaps but there is a electric backup pump in there system and also possibly a ptu.

Fire on the ground and evacuation involves killing the electrics.

From watching someone in the SIM deal with a fire and evacuation it's quite an involved process and order on the 737.

the not having slides saves a huge amount of fuel and maintenance. Its a feature of the stumpy legs of the 737 that they can do it
 
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So my figuring of events is they had some sort of engine vibration, diverted to Denver for some reason,landed OK, taxied to a gate.

From the snapshot below, it looks like engines were off, jet bridge attached and then there was a fire. There were alot of ramp people around so no engines and no evidence of smoke or fire extinguishing material being blown. Hence no flaps 40. So I guess quite a fewPX had already got off and so did most of the rest. Just faster than normal....

Clearly this fire was visible and smoke maybe also got sucked into the cabin somehow so passengers, with their carry on in some cases, decided to get out onto the wing.

There is video of a ramp person with a large hose which is either foam, dry powder or CO2, hence the large white cloud which you see,who is actually visible in the snapshot below.

Screenshot_20250316_075713_Samsung Internet.jpg
 
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It's a bit of a nightmare that one. Your base configuration is the doors unarmed for deploying slides.

Everyone is in the bins to get bags out.

CC are in disembark mode.

It might not be the engines that have gone on fire. The air cycle machines are in that area also the ducts and bleeds from compressor sections.

They should have had hydraulic power from the APU to deploy the flaps.

That said it's the 737 reliance of paper qrh and memory items causing issues yet again. And it's not a situation I have ever done in the last 23 years commercial flying. I wouldn't be surprised though if I see it in the next 6 months.
 
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Alistair_Heaton said:
It's a bit of a nightmare that one. Your base configuration is the doors unarmed for deploying slides.

Everyone is in the bins to get bags out.

CC are in disembark mode.

It might not be the engines that have gone on fire. The air cycle machines are in that area also the ducts and bleeds from compressor sections.

They should have had hydraulic power from the APU to deploy the flaps.

That said it's the 737 reliance of paper qrh and memory items causing issues yet again. And it's not a situation I have ever done in the last 23 years commercial flying. I wouldn't be surprised though if I see it in the next 6 months.
Click to expand...
It looks like something leaked out of the plane onto the tarmac and caught fire. Maybe engine oil?

Large vibrations could easily break something or shake a hose connection loose. ⁸

I was a bit surprised the ground controllers didn't issue an immediate stop notice to all those taxing aircraft. Is that a thing they are supposed to do? Those fire engines and other vehicles and passengers wandering around were surely in some danger.
 
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waross said:
And parked on the other side of the plane was a mobile luggage conveyor.
Walking down that would have brought passengers very close to the ground.
To bad no-one thought to reposition it.
Click to expand...
Actually looks like that's exactly what they did. A bit unorthodox for sure, but good thinking.

Screenshot_20250316_134746_Samsung Internet.jpg
 
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The 737 has quite high pressure hydraulic system and large tanks and huge cooling matrixes.

Skydrol is meant to be fire resistant.

The noise and vibration could be the pump dying
 
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No problem. At least they didn't try to set the conveyor belt moving....
 
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