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Plane fire at Heathrow?


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It is a cleaning area for sure, but why is only that spot so dirty when in the picture i posted earlier, you can see that there are several cleaning areas next to one another?

I have never discounted it as a cleaning area, but I know what our hot brake area looked like in CFB Cold Lake and it was very similar to this. It was heavily concentrated with marks, both tire and scorch marks. Given that it is much dirtier than the other spots I think it is more than a wash area.

Isn't it so that planes are advised to keep rolling untill fire crews get there. I assumed the most dangerous thing to do is stop when no fire engines are present. Wouldn't it be better to keep rolling to a designated area and have the fire crew meet you there at the time you arrive?

Yes, you want to keep airflow over the wheel assembly and limit the use of brakes until the crews a set-up. The absolute worse thing to do is to stop and wait.

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I have never discounted it as a cleaning area, but I know what our hot brake area looked like in CFB Cold Lake and it was very similar to this.

Please let it be know that i never wanted to state that you discounted it. I wanted to point out that the area seems like a dual purpose spot (cleaning and hot brake spot).

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Please let it be know that i never wanted to state that you discounted it. I wanted to point out that the area seems like a dual purpose spot (cleaning and hot brake spot).

Sorry, I didn't feel you had.

I did feel the person you were responding to thought I was out to lunch though. I am only making an educated guess which I feel may be correct.

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I've never seen a wash pan with that pattern. And brakes do have magnesium in them, not just the wheels. I didn't say the disks were magnesium.

Met-L-X is class D (dry chemical) and they are light blue (although I have seen some in red with the d label). In Canada they are light blue.

All airfields have a designated hot brake area. I didn't suggest the aircraft would be towed there. A hot brake area is located just off the main runway, away from the exit so it doesn't block other traffic. The aircraft taxis to it to keep cooling air flowing and so the firefighters can get set up.

Met-L-X IS dry powder and light blue, if I was in a situation where I need one I'll shout for the dry powder not the met dash l dash x and I've covered two instances of white hot glowing, smoking brakes. Fuse plugs blowing, tyres deflating and evil smoke too. Now the fuse plugs have blown and we have deflated tyres where are we moving to? . Hot brake areas for the 4 runway ends? If its landing over Hounslow the hot brakes will be at Stanwell end, or T5 end,on either of two runways if they are coming in over Slough the hot brakes will be at the hatton X end on either of two runways. Or are you saying they have to move to one area that could be 3 miles away. Taxi to keep the brakes cool? you have nil effective braking because they are HOT, its an energy conversion, braking, too hot and the heat packs cant convert anymore energy.And When the thing could just burst in to flames at any second? I can just imagine the headlines 200 plus passengers die in a brake fire blaze and exploding lumps of tyres, wheels and brake assemblies while fire teams watch from a safe distance through Binoculars. Long headline though!

It is a wash pan, it was a wash pan in the 60's/70's etc. How many wash pan patterns have you studied? I'll guess none. The one at Brize was about the same in grime and black stuff. There is a picture of a BA VC10 on ebay parked on the same pan being washed, I cant find it now so it must have sold.

I forgot to a couple of things,the area we were looking at is BA maintenance, not the place to bring a smoking jet full of pax.

The BA wash pans would see countless planes for pre and post service washes and out of phase washes the muck and grime dissolved by the detergents would give you a build up of carbon, grease, oil and rubber etc. and all black or dark grey, the main area for all this stuff is focused on the U/Cs outwards, exactly what that picture shows.

Tyre marks can be made by A/C tyres going in a straight line without any braking or steering, its just the way they are, scrubbing on the concrete.

Edited by bzn20
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Met-L-X IS dry powder and light blue, if I was in a situation where I need one I'll shout for the dry powder not the met dash l dash x and I've covered two instances of white hot glowing, smoking brakes. Fuse plugs blowing, tyres deflating and evil smoke too. Now the fuse plugs have blown and we have deflated tyres where are we moving to? . Hot brake areas for the 4 runway ends? If its landing over Hounslow the hot brakes will be at Stanwell end, or T5 end,on either of two runways if they are coming in over Slough the hot brakes will be at the hatton X end on either of two runways. Or are you saying they have to move to one area that could be 3 miles away. Taxi to keep the brakes cool? you have nil effective braking because they are HOT, its an energy conversion, braking, too hot and the heat packs cant convert anymore energy.And When the thing could just burst in to flames at any second? I can just imagine the headlines 200 plus passengers die in a brake fire blaze and exploding lumps of tyres, wheels and brake assemblies while fire teams watch from a safe distance through Binoculars. Long headline though!

It is a wash pan, it was a wash pan in the 60's/70's etc. How many wash pan patterns have you studied? I'll guess none. The one at Brize was about the same in grime and black stuff. There is a picture of a BA VC10 on ebay parked on the same pan being washed, I cant find it now so it must have sold.

This is a discussion forum, not a be a derogatory put down the other guy forum. I 've seen plenty of wash pans. again, for you, I am not discounting that it could be a wash pan.

Dry chemical is dry powder, met-l-ex is a brand name. I know both, I did airfield fire training every six months.

On a busy airfield you do instruct an aircraft to taxi clear of the runway and other traffic. They don't need to use brakes when they taxi. Heathrow is busy, for safety of the other aircraft they will keep the aircraft moving for cooling while the crews get set-up.

The deflation mats and cages are set up or close to the hot brake area. So there is a designated area.

Cold Lake had 300 fighters/jets per each launch recovery cycle during a Maple Flag. We kept the aircraft moving when we discovered hot brakes, stopping and waiting is dangerous.

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The area is described in the NATS aerodrome map as No.1 Maintenance area & a bit of digging around suggests that it's a B.A. cleaning facility.

Is it just me or does the outline on the deck not look like that of Concorde - sharply tapered leading edge & flat trailing edge with no tail? Considering the proximity to the engine test stand, is it possible that Concorde, having afterburning turbojets rather than turbofans & being "enclosed" in a test bay ends up dirtier than you average passenger jet after engine testing & requires a good clean in the closest bay?

Edit:- The 1999 Google Earth images shows the area in the test bay, between the test bay / "burnt" bay & the "burnt" bay to be the dirtiest that there are in the whole area - pretty certain that's it's all connected.

Edited by Air-Craft
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I'm not putting you down. And I used to go to Cold Lake exercises with the VC10s flying out the Bucc ground crews. You can instruct, its down to the Captain. He is taxiing with hot smoking brakes he knows he hasn't got any effective braking. Not the ones I had to deal with. Not the Captains I flew with, they'd stop and wait unless there was a (more)dangerous situation if they did stop.

Once again, I'm not putting you down but in my experience the situation is dealt with "right now" not in 5 minutes time. No disrespect here but we are talking about Heathrow and airliners not Cold Lake's fast jets, there is a world of difference. Love the name Cold Lake I've never been there with the pan temp lower than 80f.I guess in winter its a bit different though.

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It's a wash pan nothing else. You wouldn't taxi a jet into a maintenance stand with hot brakes period. I would be surprised if Heathrow even had a designated hot brake area as the airport is so vast with multiple runways, any area depending on location of incident a/c, location of other a/c and the location of the emergency services in relation to the incident a/c would determine the RV point.

The two dark lines that run from left to right across the apron (one at the bottom of the staining, the other at the top) look like drainage channels. The area between the two channels is obviously in a dip and is where water collects before evaporating leaving the staining.

The image date is 2010 so why is Concorde in the engine test facility when it was retired 7 years prior?

Edited by scotthldr
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I'm not putting you down. And I used to go to Cold Lake exercises with the VC10s flying out the Bucc ground crews. You can instruct, its down to the Captain. He is taxiing with hot smoking brakes he knows he hasn't got any effective braking. Not the ones I had to deal with. Not the Captains I flew with, they'd stop and wait unless there was a (more)dangerous situation if they did stop.

Once again, I'm not putting you down but in my experience the situation is dealt with "right now" not in 5 minutes time. No disrespect here but we are talking about Heathrow and airliners not Cold Lake's fast jets, there is a world of difference. Love the name Cold Lake I've never been there with the pan temp lower than 80f.I guess in winter its a bit different though.

No problem, my apoligies if I misunderstood your reply. That's certainly the dirtiest wash pan I have ever seen. We no longer wash outside, we aren't permitted due to all the green police these days. We have to use approved cleaning stations with collection points that don't drain into any fresh water. The floors have to be painted and we squeegee them clean. The drained contaminants are picked up by a truck.

The procedure on the fast jets is we look over the brakes as they come off the taxiway, we even had an IR heat gun to detect the temps. If we suspect a problem we send them to the hot brake area for further inspection or cooling. We don't ever want them to stop in the chocks as that is when the heat will vastly increase. I have seen it once while doing an A check and the plug blew.

The worst case I saw was a Nationair DC-8 we had been using as a charter during the Gulf War. Each time it landed we reported hot brakes in the chocks to the pilot. The issue was ignored by Nationair. We documented and kept reporting the problem but they kept getting clearance to fly from their engineers. Several months later, that jet crashed after take-off after both main tires burst on take-off and caught fire. The wheels were retracted and burned through both hydraulic systems. We were interviewed by the investigators but the cause of the accident was attributed to under-inflated and worn tires. To this day I still feel dragging brakes contributed to the wear and heating of the tires. 272 people died in that crash.

I miss Cold Lake and yes it could certainly reach each end of the temperture spectrum.

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It's a wash pan nothing else. You wouldn't taxi a jet into a maintenance stand with hot brakes period. I would be surprised if Heathrow even had a designated hot brake area as the airport is so vast with multiple runways, any area depending on location of incident a/c, location of other a/c and the location of the emergency services in relation to the incident a/c would determine the RV point.

The two dark lines that run from left to right across the apron (one at the bottom of the staining, the other at the top) look like drainage channels. The area between the two channels is obviously in a dip and is where water collects before evaporating leaving the staining.

The image date is 2010 so why is Concorde in the engine test facility when it was retired 7 years prior?

I didn't say taxi into maintenance stands. Obviously our procedures differ , our hot brake areas have deflation mats so the tires don't explode and kill someone. The cages are positioned at the spots and could be pushed over the tires if we missed a hot brake and didn't deflate the tire.

I never discounted this being a wash pan, I even at first suggested it was. As I have mentioned, I have never seen one this scorched/dirty. I now see what those dark lines are, drainage channels. For our outdoor wash spots, we never had those in Canada.

Wash pan, a very dirty one.

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Scooby

You are protesting too much. I forget the old English, it's got a thou in it somewhere.

I lived 'round Heathrow from the end of the piston engine era. It doesn't matter, it ain't CSI Heathrow. Its been a wash pan since I can remember. All the other theories are out the window. Scorch marks are black, so is grease, oil, rubber bits and what is left from evap. If its obvious your procedures are different, why have you spent time arguing about what you do in Cold Lake? When I was about 3-4 yrs old I was taken on a Stratocruiser roughly in the same position (that bit hasn't changed as those huts/single storey buildings behind the blast walls/grass mounds in places) are part of the original London Airport 1955 or earlier.

The roads around there start E..Exeter road etc. because its the East side. S for south side roads, N for north etc. C for the central area. Vanguard road in the E bit was added later after TBA (Tech. Block A ) was built roughly 1969/70. The N, E, S and west roads are the original roads. Heathrow was my back yard I was there nearly every day, after school, all weekend, watch the movements from my classroom.

Edited by bzn20
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No problem, my apoligies if I misunderstood your reply. That's certainly the dirtiest wash pan I have ever seen. We no longer wash outside, we aren't permitted due to all the green police these days. We have to use approved cleaning stations with collection points that don't drain into any fresh water. The floors have to be painted and we squeegee them clean. The drained contaminants are picked up by a truck.

The procedure on the fast jets is we look over the brakes as they come off the taxiway, we even had an IR heat gun to detect the temps. If we suspect a problem we send them to the hot brake area for further inspection or cooling. We don't ever want them to stop in the chocks as that is when the heat will vastly increase. I have seen it once while doing an A check and the plug blew.

The worst case I saw was a Nationair DC-8 we had been using as a charter during the Gulf War. Each time it landed we reported hot brakes in the chocks to the pilot. The issue was ignored by Nationair. We documented and kept reporting the problem but they kept getting clearance to fly from their engineers. Several months later, that jet crashed after take-off after both main tires burst on take-off and caught fire. The wheels were retracted and burned through both hydraulic systems. We were interviewed by the investigators but the cause of the accident was attributed to under-inflated and worn tires. To this day I still feel dragging brakes contributed to the wear and heating of the tires. 272 people died in that crash.

I miss Cold Lake and yes it could certainly reach each end of the temperture spectrum.

Thanks for that info. I cant understand the tyres bursting though. Hot brakes is one thing, rotation without braking wouldn't normally (or ever) be a problem. The Fuse plugs would (99% of the time) melt, not cause blow outs. I think (from your description) Nationair was a gash outfit, cut corners, leaned on the A&P guys to get the thing in the sky again. Its not a normal thing, hot brakes, the runway (at Cold Lake) isn't short any jet could land there with out standing on the pedals, I do remember that crash though. There are few US military contract outfits that ended up at the scene of an accident.

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Scooby

You are protesting too much. I forget the old English, it's got a thou in it somewhere.

I lived 'round Heathrow from the end of the piston engine era. It doesn't matter, it ain't CSI Heathrow. Its been a wash pan since I can remember. All the other theories are out the window. Scorch marks are black, so is grease, oil, rubber bits and what is left from evap. If its obvious your procedures are different, why have you spent time arguing about what you do in Cold Lake? When I was about 3-4 yrs old I was taken on a Stratocruiser roughly in the same position (that bit hasn't changed as those huts/single storey buildings behind the blast walls/grass mounds in places) are part of the original London Airport 1955 or earlier.

The roads around there start E..Exeter road etc. because its the East side. S for south side roads, N for north etc. C for the central area. Vanguard road in the E bit was added later after TBA (Tech. Block A ) was built roughly 1969/70. The N, E, S and west roads are the original roads. Heathrow was my back yard I was there nearly every day, after school, all weekend, watch the movements from my classroom.

Now I don't get you or you don't get me.

In my last two posts I was saying I now see it is 100% a wash pan.

This being a discussion forum I explained my reasoning for thinking otherwise and the procedures we follow on this side of the pond.

I know the amount of grime that comes off aircraft. I still can't believe how dirty that wash pan is, I have never seen one that dirty. We clean the spot after a wash, so perhaps that is te reason for the difference.

I certainly wasn't protesting nor was I arguing.

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