Fire warning light

[MikeD]

"Yeah...hey tower... how are ya? Gonna be a little late... just melted off an engine.... no big deal really... just put a little more trim in, that should do the trick. Save me some fajitas... extra hot sauce on the side." - 'nother day in the life of Mike "Ice water through my veins" D

The truth is, oftentimes I'm too stupid to know when I should be scared. But truthfully, in an EP, I figure if it's my time to go, then it's my time to go. If the Grim Reaper of aviation has come calling, there's not a hell of alot I can do, apart from attempting to solve the EP by the numbers, by procedure, and combined with some airmanship and ingenuity. All that is either going to work, or it isn't. I can only play the hand Im dealt and keep on rolling the dice. So far in my career and with the number of EPs Ive had, Ive been successful. I guess someone still wants me around here. But I don't really know where I stand......for all I know, I could be living on borrowed time, maybe even have been for awhile now.

 

[ryan1234]

Mexico Air Force. So Im going to eject instead..."

Did the IP follow it with this:
[YT]iU0fxKABJLE[/YT]

 

[///AMG]

2. Am in USAF UPT oh so long ago. In T-37s, there's this student we have from the Mexico Air Force. He gets the stand-up Emergency situation for the day. Situation is that he notices low oil pressure on the #1 while in the practice area. He says he'll follow the checklist, shut it down, and recover to the field. As the EP progresses and he's single engine, he gets a steady light in the #2 engine T-handle while on 8 mile initial for the overhead with associated high EGT and fluctuating fuel flows. In the Tweet, the fire handle light is twofold: if it flashes, it's an overheat; if it's steady, it's a fire. Now, one thing with an engine shut down for low oil pressure is that you can restart it if you like and use it if absolutely necessary. So he decides to shut down the #2 engine and eject. When asked why he didn't decide to restart the #1 first before shutting down the #2? His answer: ".....if I restart the #1, I might damage it because it's low on oil. So Im going to eject instead..."

Oh god......that's almost as good as a warm body EP sim my buddy did a while back with a questionable WSO. Right after cleaning up on takeoff, they get dual fire lights. WSO commands buddy of mine to shut both motors down and push the fire lights. Nevermind that even if you could fly a Rhino (lol @ Mike) without engines, there is still only enough bottle juice to hit one motor. Oh the humanity...luckily my friend told him to shut up and color and figured out what motor was on fire, and he didn't walk away with a SOD as well.

 

[Hacker15e]

IMO the time you ignore a fire light is the one time you will get burnt

Sometimes shutting down an engine is riskier than blindly honoring a fire light.

That's exactly why Daff's "FEVER" check exists: to look for other indications that would potentially verify that a fire actually exists. It's not "ignoring" it -- it's like Ronnie said, "trust but verify."

 

[denver]

In the 421 you burn the wing off pretty quick. The steel spar heats up enough and bends, then you are a goner. That is why these aircraft usually have fire bottles, you know supercharged and all. Most of these type aircraft do not have fire protection but many 400 series do. It's always enjoyable to watch the red glow from the cowling vents at night. Kind of like a campfire in the boy scouts in a high wind while in a tent.

 

[ppragman]

Really? You guys would shut down a motor simply because the light went off?

Ok, so, here's the thing: Know your systems! If you understand how the system works, you're going to understand if you're going to need to shut it down. For example, the fire light in the Caravan can be triggered if the fire line (a line carrying salt that changes its resistance when heated) is kinked, has slipped out of the clips, or is vibrating against something, the system in the 99 is based on several infrared sensors in the engine compartment. In the van, the engine's right there, you're going to know if you have a fire (its gonna be hard to miss it), plus, supposedly the firewall is pretty stout in those things anyway, and with only one motor, I'm not going to be shutting it down IFR - especially not in similar circumstances to yours. In the 99, you can see the engine, so do a FEVER check and determine if its a fire, or simply a bit of light getting into the space between the cowling, or driving rain confusing the sensor, or simply a short in the system before yanking T-Handles, and flying around on one motor. Another thing you could do in some airplanes is pull the circuit breaker for the fire warning light and reset it. Sometimes those lights are set up to not be able to turn off again as long as there is power on the system if the light is triggered in the first place. Recycle the system if you don't think its a fire but the light is on.

One thing I'm not going to do is start pulling T-Handles and blowing bottles at 200' unless I'm stable and cruising at 200'. In your scenario the OP put forward, I'd climb up a bit, see if I actually had a fire, then run the checklist if I did. I like those engines - thank you very much - as long as I can keep one running I'm going to. If you think about the physics of fire (the proverbial fire tetrahedron) you've got a lot of air going into that engine at 100-200KIAS, especially on takeoff/initial climb with the cowls open. If you actually had a fire in that engine compartment, you'd have to have an awful lot fuel in the mix to sustain combustion. In other words - the fire would be noticeable. I'd rather think for myself than mindlessly follow a procedure that could reduce my margin for error on accident.

 

[///AMG]

Really? You guys would shut down a motor simply because the light went off?

I think most of us agree with you. Even if the wings burn off of a 421 with the quickness, the ground or rock-filled clouds will kill you a whole lot faster. Though I guess that might be less painful than burning to death....

 

[ppragman]

In the 421 you burn the wing off pretty quick. The steel spar heats up enough and bends, then you are a goner. That is why these aircraft usually have fire bottles, you know supercharged and all. Most of these type aircraft do not have fire protection but many 400 series do. It's always enjoyable to watch the red glow from the cowling vents at night. Kind of like a campfire in the boy scouts in a high wind while in a tent.

All airplanes burn up pretty quick, but truth be told, I don't know a damn thing about 421 systems, so I can't comment on how the fire light is rigged, but the answer to your question is behind the annunciator panel and not in the QRH (just my opinion).

 

[amorris311]

It's a tough call but is almost always better to error on the side of caution. On the 727 is a no brainer. Cancel the bell, check essential, Get to accelertion altitude, speed up, cleanup, pull the QRH out and follow it all the way through the engine shutdown. Blowing the bottle may not be necessary if the fire light goes out after you pull the handle.

Tail Pipe hot and engine fires in the Saab are pretty much the same...You are shutting down and returning... an engine out approach should be a non-event. I don't have a lot of time in a 421 but S.E. work wasn't that bad even at moderate weights.


IMO the time you ignore a fire light is the one time you will get burnt

I have had a few tail pipe hot cwp's in the Saab and only once has it resulted in an engine shut down. As was said earlier you need to get to a safe altitude to be able to put your head down and assess the situation. Most of the time it was usually water or de ice fluid sitting in the back of the tailpipe that made the sensor go batty. Pull the power lever back a bit and it usually goes out. There is never a point while flying in an airplane to freak out and get all crazy unless you are pointed nose down and ten feet off the ground. A wise man once told me that the first thing you do when anything seems to go wrong is take a deep breath and swig of water.

 

[jtrain609]

In my plane? I'll run the checklist, which is parsed out so that you pull the handle and then hack 30 seconds, then if that doesn't put the fire warning out you blow one bottle and hack another 30 seconds, and if THAT doesn't do it, then you blow the second bottle. If you've REALLY got a fire on your hands then the worst thing that'll happen is the engine burns off the airframe and your new emergency is trying to figure out how much civil liability is associated with a Donnie Darko style accident with a flaming engine falling into somebody's house.

In a 421? I don't know, I don't have any 421 time, but I've got some in the 99, which had some problems with inaccurate fire warnings. In that SPECIFIC AIRCRAFT, if you got direct sunlight on some of the sensors or (oddly enough), a bunch of rain (if I remember correctly), it could trigger a fire warning. The guidance was to take a look outside, check out your instruments, consider if you're flying into the sun and/or through a rain cloud, and then make a decision. Compounding this decision, in many situations turning a few degrees (if in the sun) would usually turn off the warning, and/or climbing or descending (out of the rain) would usually turn off the warning. So basically, you had a few things to do prior to simply punching the fire bottle.

Point being? Follow the procedures for your aircraft. Don't assume it's NOT a fire, and in fact I'd assume it IS a fire, but wind the clock and run the procedures FOR YOUR AIRCRAFT. There are going to be very few truisms for emergency procedures like this, so don't rely on what you do in other aircraft. I know that in my aircraft, the checklist is designed so that you are required to wait certain periods of time before really going balls out on the problem. I know in other aircraft, that may not be the case.

But know your aircraft, and know your procedures.

 

[Maurus]

In a 421? I don't know, I don't have any 421 time, but I've got some in the 99, which had some problems with inaccurate fire warnings. In that SPECIFIC AIRCRAFT, if you got direct sunlight on some of the sensors or (oddly enough), a bunch of rain (if I remember correctly), it could trigger a fire warning. The guidance was to take a look outside, check out your instruments, consider if you're flying into the sun and/or through a rain cloud, and then make a decision. Compounding this decision, in many situations turning a few degrees (if in the sun) would usually turn off the warning, and/or climbing or descending (out of the rain) would usually turn off the warning. So basically, you had a few things to do prior to simply punching the fire bottle.

You are correct. Would be interesting to see how maint would react if you blow the fire bottle on a perfectly good engine.

 

[jtrain609]

You are correct. Would be interesting to see how maint would react if you blow the fire bottle on a perfectly good engine.

MX will be pissed as hell, but flight ops will understand if you ran through things and it was a bad sensor or something that you blew the bottle for, which is all that matters.

And don't let MX give you the impression that they haven't done stuff like this before. When I was there, one of the mechanics in Burbank was working on a sensor issue on a 1900, and he couldn't get the light to go out. So what's he do? He taps on it.

You can imagine what happened, and how much of a mess it was being that the engine was opened up.

 

[Pilotforhire587]

In my plane? I'll run the checklist, which is parsed out so that you pull the handle and then hack 30 seconds, then if that doesn't put the fire warning out you blow one bottle and hack another 30 seconds, and if THAT doesn't do it, then you blow the second bottle. If you've REALLY got a fire on your hands then the worst thing that'll happen is the engine burns off the airframe and your new emergency is trying to figure out how much civil liability is associated with a Donnie Darko style accident with a flaming engine falling into somebody's house.

In a 421? I don't know, I don't have any 421 time, but I've got some in the 99, which had some problems with inaccurate fire warnings. In that SPECIFIC AIRCRAFT, if you got direct sunlight on some of the sensors or (oddly enough), a bunch of rain (if I remember correctly), it could trigger a fire warning. The guidance was to take a look outside, check out your instruments, consider if you're flying into the sun and/or through a rain cloud, and then make a decision. Compounding this decision, in many situations turning a few degrees (if in the sun) would usually turn off the warning, and/or climbing or descending (out of the rain) would usually turn off the warning. So basically, you had a few things to do prior to simply punching the fire bottle.

Point being? Follow the procedures for your aircraft. Don't assume it's NOT a fire, and in fact I'd assume it IS a fire, but wind the clock and run the procedures FOR YOUR AIRCRAFT. There are going to be very few truisms for emergency procedures like this, so don't rely on what you do in other aircraft. I know that in my aircraft, the checklist is designed so that you are required to wait certain periods of time before really going balls out on the problem. I know in other aircraft, that may not be the case.

But know your aircraft, and know your procedures.

Thats the way the Dash is too! CHECKLISTS my friends... They are there to save your ass

 

[Autothrust Blue]

You are correct. Would be interesting to see how maint would react if you blow the fire bottle on a perfectly good engine.

And I don't care how maintenance will react. Because I know I did the right thing given my training, the available information and indications...and they were not there!

Disregarding something the airplane is telling you is a pretty bad idea. Does the 421 have a single or dual loop fire detection system? If a dual loop system is alarming, the memory items for engine fire are being accomplished regardless of presence or absence of secondary indications. Single loop? Ehh. If I need the engine to get clear of terrain, I might keep it running.

Nothing, I mean nothing, is happening until acceleration height regardless.

 

[ppragman]

Thats the way the Dash is too! CHECKLISTS my friends... They are there to save your ass

Procedures are only good insofar as they apply to the situation at hand. If you're not on fire then the "engine fire" checklist isn't really applicable. I am thoroughly opposed to "ninja hands-ing" any problem in the airplane - to include an engine fire. Figure out if its a fire first, then run the checklist. Shutting an engine down and or fragging a perfectly good motor because of a faulty wire that causes a light to illuminate is bad airmanship (in my opinion).

Having seen a plethora of faulty indications in a variety of airplanes now, I am no longer so quick to jump to conclusions. Consider the Caravan, you're flying along and your Red Generator Out annunciator kicks on. What do you do? TRIP AND RESET ACCKCKCKCKCK! No. Figure out what's up, maybe you bumped the start switch to start and the GCU kicked the gen offline. You'll know if the ignition annunciator is on. What about an oil pressure light in the 99? Could it be that your AC powered oil gauge (which drives the annunciator) has gone haywire and the system is confused? Maybe try selecting the other inverter to see if that changes the status quo first. Also, the prop feathers if the oil pressure is low enough, so maybe jumping to the conclusion that you need to perform a precautionary shutdown is a little extreme unless you're watching the oil pressure wind down faster and faster.

As an aside, does anyone know offhand what the minimum oil pressure is to keep the prop out of feather in a PT6? I don't, and I'd be interested in knowing.

 

[Hacker15e]

Thats the way the Dash is too! CHECKLISTS my friends... They are there to save your ass

But are not a replacement for airmanship or judgment.

 

[MikeD]

But are not a replacement for airmanship or judgment.

Shack.

Which are things one would especially need in the situation the OP described if single-pilot. There might not be time in the near-term of the EP for a checklist to be run. The checklist ideas are all well and good, but when they can be brought into play will highly differ between a single-pilot plane, and a crew aircraft. Until then....in both cases....good airmanship, judgement, and decisionmaking will be the only bag of tricks one has to draw cards from.

Now once the checklist can be safely run, definitely do it....that's what its there for.

 

[ryan1234]

TRIP AND RESET ACCKCKCKCKCK!

Those flashing red and yellow lights are so annoying... especially when you're on short final... because then you have to take the time to read the small print on them... "Pitch Trim Fail" - Got it! "L and R Fuel Quantity Low" Got it! Good thing there's a reset button though!

 

[Autothrust Blue]

Shack.

Which are things one would especially need in the situation the OP described if single-pilot. There might not be time in the near-term of the EP for a checklist to be run. The checklist ideas are all well and good, but when they can be brought into play will highly differ between a single-pilot plane, and a crew aircraft. Until then....in both cases....good airmanship, judgement, and decisionmaking will be the only bag of tricks one has to draw cards from.

Now once the checklist can be safely run, definitely do it....that's what its there for.

Checklist philosophy should be "take the immediate, obvious action required to contain the emergency first, then worry about the checklist when safe to have your attention diverted."

 

[jtrain609]

Shack.

Which are things one would especially need in the situation the OP described if single-pilot. There might not be time in the near-term of the EP for a checklist to be run. The checklist ideas are all well and good, but when they can be brought into play will highly differ between a single-pilot plane, and a crew aircraft. Until then....in both cases....good airmanship, judgement, and decisionmaking will be the only bag of tricks one has to draw cards from.

Now once the checklist can be safely run, definitely do it....that's what its there for.

You may or may not agree with me on this, but I think more people have flown their airmanship into the ground than their checklists into the ground. Not to say that you can't fly a checklist into the ground, because people have, and will do so in the future, but the emergency procedure memory items and checklists are written by folks who have the presence of mind to consider the best course of action for your given operation.

Now if it's obvious that running that checklist will get you killed, then by all means, don't run the checklist, but let's also talk about how often that's going to happen.

Don't get me wrong, I love to "what if" situations to death, but the majority of the time this stuff is going to be cut and dried stuff, and the emergency procedure checklist is there to mitigate pilots from creating their own procedures when they are, quite literally, on fire.