De-Icing Fluid in the APU cause for Emergency Landing

I get that glycol in an APU is bad juju, but is there anyone that can explain the physics of why the blades trying to compress the fluid does such bad things? I've heard my share of them where you could tell they'd been sprayed. Most obnoxious sound on earth.
 
From the article:

"One passenger, Jamie Page, said he'd never felt an aircraft brake so forcefully before, and that it seemed as though the pilot wanted to get the plane back to the ground quickly."

Say what? :confused2:
 
Seems really odd for them to get the "smoke" but no burnt glycol smell. Glycol does funny things in planes when it gets where it shouldn't. Lav smoke on a CRJ anyone?
 
2005, as lead hand working an F100, I watched the guy in the boom spray down the fuselage right into the APU, all I got in the headset was *Crackle crackle CLICK*

Followed by what I can only compare to the death of a star in space, heavy smoke, followed by a WHOOOMP WHOOMP BOOOM, a big blast of flame and one seriously pissed off flight crew.
 
Rocketman99 said:
Seems really odd for them to get the "smoke" but no burnt glycol smell. Glycol does funny things in planes when it gets where it shouldn't. Lav smoke on a CRJ anyone?
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Seen it probably 4-5 times on the ramp on the MD-83, literally almost filled the cabin with smoke for 20-30 seconds.
 
canadian_atc said:
Seen it probably 4-5 times on the ramp on the MD-83, literally almost filled the cabin with smoke for 20-30 seconds.
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The MD and Douglas guys were probably just happy the deice crew didn't squirt the windscreen! That stuff is not a welcomed addition to coffee.
 
:eek: Do they train these guys to miss the APU inlet, or is it just one of those, "Yeahhhh by the wayyy you destroyed an APU, and you shouldn't do that." ??
 
JustinS said:
:eek: Do they train these guys to miss the APU inlet, or is it just one of those, "Yeahhhh by the wayyy you destroyed an APU, and you shouldn't do that." ??
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In most circumstances, yes they (we) are trained to avoid the APU air inlet and outlet.
 
Big problem with the RJ. We have several every winter that get "smoke" in the cabin because deicing crews shooting certain places with glycol.
 
About 3 years ago at XJT we got the memo that APUs had to be off during de-icing. Prior to that I had one crap itself due to fluid.

They went even further and added a step where we set our pitch trim full nose down so that fluid won't run off the horizontal stab into the inlet ( while it's off).

Mx has told me that fluid does damage the APU aside from just shutting it down. And personally I hate anything that hurts the APU!
 
Pilotdude3407 said:
Big problem with the RJ. We have several every winter that get "smoke" in the cabin because deicing crews shooting certain places with glycol.
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After de/anti-icing in the Brasilia, the APU bleed is not to be used during taxi, takeoff, or initial climb. The deice crews tend to be pretty good about avoiding it, but there's apparently just enough runoff.


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Autothrust Blue said:
After de/anti-icing in the Brasilia, the APU bleed is not to be used during taxi, takeoff, or initial climb. The deice crews tend to be pretty good about avoiding it, but there's apparently just enough
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So why have it on at all and risk damage? Just curious.
 
Baronman said:
So engines have to be shut down?
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In theory, we can do Type I with the condition levers in FEATHER, although all that does is expose the de-icing crew to an added prop hazard and most Captains won't even think about it. We typically deice with the engines shut down, APU running and bleed closed.
 
I never bought that one. How far away are you shooting things from your box? Prop hazard my ass. It's not hard to avoid a giant spinning propeller that you know is spinning. If it is too hard to dodge a giant spinning propeller then perhaps you need to look for another line of work. One in a protective bubble away from anything that might hurt you, perhaps airline management.

A couple of weeks ago I was at an outstation in the RJ that wouldn't let us deice with engines running either. Thought that was amusing as well. Guess they prefer to drench their GPU in glycol.
 
Rocketman99 said:
I never bought that one. How far away are you shooting things from your box? Prop hazard my ass. It's not hard to avoid a giant spinning propeller that you know is spinning. If it is too hard to dodge a giant spinning propeller then perhaps you need to look for another line of work. One in a protective bubble away from anything that might hurt you, perhaps airline management.
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Uh...I have bad news for you. Most of our outstations have a lift that'll let them get at the tail, but they're out there doing the de-icing without an enclosed cab.
 
Shutting back down for deicing after moving to the pad (most outstations have us move at least a little bit if they have any concern for their passengers at all) is a total waste of time. It used to be specified that deicing was done with the engines running and props feathered unless type IV was planned or they were using a tower instead of a truck.

I've had the APU killed a couple times by the deice truck firing a shot into the intake. It always started back up fine, the Brasilia is a resilient old bird. It'll still be trucking when the last CRJ200 bites the dust.
 
Autothrust Blue said:
In theory, we can do Type I with the condition levers in FEATHER, although all that does is expose the de-icing crew to an added prop hazard and most Captains won't even think about it. We typically deice with the engines shut down, APU running and bleed closed.
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We are approved for two engine (props feathered) deice + anti ice in our 3 hubs plus Toronto. All other places we have to shut down one engine (with the other running, out of feather), have them spray that side then rotate.

Our 200s don't have APUs and I think the reason we do it that way on the 300s (which have APUs) is commonality. Plus I'm pretty sure we're supposed to have more than 1 source of hydraulic power at all times when we're not chocked.

I've never had an APU die while deicing.



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