Asiana 214 helmet cam
- Thread starter Bob Ridpath
- Start date
The biggest problem here is that the Fire Attack BC is not an ARFF guy, he’s a structural guy. And you can tell that he doesn’t fully understand ARFF tactics/techniques/procedures, and it’s causing him to overly micromanage the scene.
There’s only so much reach that the non-snozzle crash trucks have, and there comes a point where you’re pumping high GPMs but not reaching the fire, just wasting water/foam. I understand that this is a defensive fight at this time, but with the snozzle truck off the scene for refill, the only way to reach the fire with effective streams is to ground-ladder up to one or more of the exits, and flow water/foam with a handline. No need to make entry into the fuselage, just obtain the stream-reach to the seat of the fire, thus still keeping it defensive. Once the snozzle truck returns to the scene, then it can get to work reaching the seat of the fire through the fuselage crown burn-through points, which it eventually did.
Am surprised the airport doesn’t have water tenders in the 3000-5000 gallon range for on scene resupply of the ARFF trucks. Using the structural engines as water resupply is better than nothing, but you’re only getting 500 gallons from each truck, not a very efficient resupply source, as 500 gallons is about 15-30 seconds of water from the ARFF trucks.
There’s only so much reach that the non-snozzle crash trucks have, and there comes a point where you’re pumping high GPMs but not reaching the fire, just wasting water/foam. I understand that this is a defensive fight at this time, but with the snozzle truck off the scene for refill, the only way to reach the fire with effective streams is to ground-ladder up to one or more of the exits, and flow water/foam with a handline. No need to make entry into the fuselage, just obtain the stream-reach to the seat of the fire, thus still keeping it defensive. Once the snozzle truck returns to the scene, then it can get to work reaching the seat of the fire through the fuselage crown burn-through points, which it eventually did.
Am surprised the airport doesn’t have water tenders in the 3000-5000 gallon range for on scene resupply of the ARFF trucks. Using the structural engines as water resupply is better than nothing, but you’re only getting 500 gallons from each truck, not a very efficient resupply source, as 500 gallons is about 15-30 seconds of water from the ARFF trucks.
USMCmech
Well-Known Member
and all that foam covered up the poor girl that was crushed.
I'm not certain the exact timeline of that part of the fire, but I can't imagine it helped.
At this point, it’s all evidence preservation to the maximum reasonable extent. You’re not going to risk lives over it, but you’re not going to slack off either.
Probably multi-floor involved. There’s no interior firefighting crews with hose lines in that area, so all you have is the two ladder trucks trying to flood it out. A lot of structure fire like that which is likely deep seated, will take a lot of water to suppress.
a lot of that foam was deliberately placed on the ground, as they had the one wing tank that was spilling jet fuel from underneath the jet into pools on the ground, so they had a thick foam blanket over it to contain the vapors that they were reinforcing. Unfortunately, as you note, that same blanket served to conceal the passenger who was laying on the ground just outside the jet.
Unfortunately, where this video takes place, that passenger had already been run over by one of the snozzle trucks (rescue 10), and was deceased.
Murdoughnut
Well sized member
Help me understand here. I've ridden with the ARFF team at TPA and know their call out procedures and what not - but is it customary to open the gates and allow other units to join the scene? I always figured it was just ARFF on the field if it was contained to the airport, plus additional ambulances brought in for transport. Seemed like a lot of firefighters not in ARFF gear there.
its customary to have assistance from off field, to what degree and with what units depends on the SOPs if it’s the same department (like SFO) or on any Letter of Agreenent (if it’s other agencies). Smaller airports with only one or two ARFF truck may depend on this for manpower purposes or equipment.
Either way, it’s not the the gate necessarily opens, it’s that off-airport units will stage at designated airport entrances, and will be escorted to the scene (at big airports) by airport PD, or called to the scene from staging as-needed at small airports.
The key is having an ARFF person ultimately in charge. SFO didn’t do this, and that’s a failure in their SOPs as it comes to chain of command. Being that the airport is considered just another SFO fire station, in the event of a large accident, a division chief officer arrives from off-airport and takes overall command. If he’s smart and the SOPs are good, he would appoint the senior ARFF Captain on duty as the ICS fire attack supervisor in charge of all fireground ops, including where and how to use the backup structural units. Instead, he had the ARFF captain as the liaison between the airport and the city structural fire units at the command post, and appointed a city structural battalion Chief as the head of fire attack, one who is not ARFF trained. You can see in the video that this guy, while well intentioned, does not understand the tactics and methodology for fire attack on aircraft and the associated challenges, by how he’s directing the ARFF trucks and what he’s trying to get them to do, and you can tell that he doesn’t really know the ARFF personnel, but knows well the structural personnel who showed up as backup. The ARFF captain on scene could have better and more efficiently coordinated the trucks and their usage, as well as personnel duties, which is something there was a breakdown on. And he could have done it without having to micromanage each and every thing the trucks were doing, because he would have the understanding of ops that the structural chief doesn’t. SFO was directed to make changes to their SOPs because of this.
With regards to off-airport assistance as it comes to manpower, there currently is no manpower requirement mandated for ARFF. The regs only day what equipment and gallonage is required for what size of airport operations, and the manpower needed to operate that equipment. Taken literally, that could mean that if X airport requires 2 crash trucks, then the staffing needed would be 2 firefighters, if each truck can be operated by one firefighter. Large airports with big departments such as SFO, PHX, DFW, LAX etc, they have the money for large airport fire staffing, often having 15-20+ firefighters per shift. Smaller airports, or airports not tied to the larger local fire department, or rural airports etc, often have minimal ARFF staffing, down to possibly one firefighter per truck, which may mean only 1-2 firefighters on duty. The whole reason behind this is the mission of ARFF, which is to be able to protect aircraft exits in the case of an accidents to allow for persons to escape. There is no specific requirement for interior firefighting/rescue ops ability at the same time. Which sucks for anyone trapped or non-ambulatory. Larger ARFF departments have the $$$ to have this extra staffing to do both exterior and interior fire and rescue ops simultaneously, while smaller ones don’t and have to make do with what’s at the airport, or rely on backup from off field.
When my company gets ARFF contract work, it’s often in places where we are the only game around. Still, we check with what is locally available for backup in the event that we are faced with something unexpected or a situation larger than for what we are normally covering.
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NovemberEcho
Dergs favorite member
Yes. They’re pretty large ones that were easily noticed during the investigation, and seen on the video here by anyone experienced who would say “weird....the decisions this guy is making”. What changes actually came out of it at SFFD, I have not specifically seen.
Also worthy to note that ARFF is only required at airports with air carrier passenger operations of 9 or more if scheduled or 31 or more if unscheduled. Any other airport, particularly GA-only airports, have no ARFF fire department requirement. And there are some busy GA airports out there with all knds of aircraft ops ther than the above, where there isn't ARFF protection on the field.