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Today I read a report that an ANA 787 had a problem with wiring in a system to put out fires and found similar problems in two other 787s. The fire extinguisher controls for the left and right engines were crossed.
...causing JAL to recall a Tokyo-Helsinki flight that had already departed.
In the event the flightcrew needed to extinguish a fire in one engine, the crossed wires would have caused the extinguisher in the other engine to be activated.
Not a risk to passengers, but I bet the thought of a plane falling apart in flight does little to build confidence.
Again, not the first time a wing fairing has detached and unlikely to cause a problem unless it wraps itself badly around a stab.
I would love to see the many people who slagged off Airbus designs to use this to just moderate and balance their perceptions a little.
Designing beyond existing technology is not easy, despite all the computers and experience, there is only one way to achieve great results and that is to push ahead aggresively.
UK Aviation Agency Says Faulty Wiring Likely Led To Dreamliner Fire.
Reuters (6/18, Scott) reported that the UK Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) said on Wednesday that the July 12, 2013 fire aboard a Boeing Dreamliner at London Heathrow Airport was likely caused by faulty wiring in a locator beacon, which resulted in an uncontrollable discharge from a battery. The AAIB issued five recommendations that the FAA could integrate in regards to lithium batteries on aircraft, which echoed comments that the NTSB made in May.
It was identified early in the investigation that ELT battery wires, crossed and trapped under the battery compartment cover-plate, probably created a short-circuit current path which could allow a rapid, uncontrolled discharge of the battery. Root Cause testing performed by the aircraft and ELT manufacturers confirmed this latent fault as the most likely cause of the ELT battery fire, most probably in combination with the early depletion of a single cell
Sounds like whoever installed the battery couldn't spend the extra 5 seconds necessary to ensure the wires were positioned properly.
The LHR fire fighting crew had difficulty in finding and fighting this fire.
The report says this about the crew and an inflight ELT fire (Page 39):
25) In the event of an in-flight ELT battery fire, detecting the fire and
locating its source would be challenging for cabin crew, due to the
inaccessible location of the ELT in the cabin.
26) In the event of an in-flight ELT battery fire, fighting the ELT fire and
any subsequent structural fire would be challenging for cabin crew
due to the inaccessible location of the ELT in the cabin.
And from page 42: The cabin crew would then have to stand on a seat, or an
arm-rest, to aim a fire extinguisher at the source of the fire.
In my opinion the ELT has design deficiencies and inadequate quality assurance provisions (e.g. A post assembly x-ray or n-ray inspection could possibly detect the trapped and crossed wires).
The report says (page 1: "Despite the degree of damage observed, the fuselage skin had not been
breached by the fire."
But would the skin be breached at flight level due to pressure differential? Especially considering empennage forces.
It seems to me that the ELT access and/or location needs to be improved (not just for safety but also maintenance).
[As an aerospace engineer reports such as this make me aware of design and QA issues with applicability to other applications.]
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