Jet catches fire in Perth whilst taking off

The number 2 engine on a BAE 146 caught fire as it took off from Perth domestic airport, it was loaded with FIFO guys on their way to barrow island.

One of the passengers filmed the sparks flying past his window..



Plane landed safely.

www.perthnow.com.au...< br />

a reply to: AlphaHawk Well it wasn't a fuel fire TG ..I would imagine just shutting down the engine would stop all the sparks ...

a reply to: AlphaHawk

I saw two aircraft with engine fires when I was out in Hawaii. One was a C-135, that had a hydraulic pump let go in flight. That was scary because they took their time (as opposed to popping the crew hatch and evacuating), and didn't realize the engine was burning.

The other one was funnier. It was the GE engine testbed 747. They had one of the 777 PIP upgrade engines mounted and were testing in warm weather. They tiled out on landing and the tower called them and said, "Um, did you know your engine was on fire?" They evacuated, and sat there for two months going over data and repairing the engine.

a reply to: Zaphod58

I'd be praying to the god I don't think exists if I saw that while on a plane lol.

Lucky it happened so close to the airport, it was heading north and there's not a lot of places to put it down.

a reply to: AlphaHawk

Yeah they were. Actual engine fires don't happen very often, and are always very dangerous when they do. These guys were very lucky.

Now THIS is what makes me nervous. Seen some weird and scary crap in peoples bags.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Indeed.

Prohibited dangerous goods tells us nothing

Strong heat source might though..

a reply to: AlphaHawk

Watched a guy try to check in a used outboard motor once. Said it was ok because the gas tank was empty.

a reply to: Zaphod58

I would have thought he would have to completely clean it?

Oil, grease etc are all potentially flammable.

It amazes me what people try to take with them on a plane!

a reply to: AlphaHawk

At least 48 hours venting of the gas tank is required, as well as removing all the other fluids.

That's one reason I loved working at the airport. The stuff people brought and argued that it was ok to take on the plane was downright funny at times.

We used to have an island hopping flight from HNL to Guam on M-W-F morning. We used to joke that they were smuggling a car, part by part because we always saw small parts in their carry on bags. Brakes, distributor, distributor cap, etc.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Ha! Wouldn't surprise me.

Was it Gran Torino that he did that?

Only weird thing I've seen was a set of spotlights from one of the site utes (I did FIFO myself), the prick stole them...

Not a smart move really, firstly because he gets put on a blacklist that all the big miners share, thusly never gets employed in the industry ever again.

And secondly, he could have bought those same spotties, brand new for 3 hours work...

Another hour or two and he could have got them fitted! Bwahaha

Qantas sounds like its cut on its maintenance the last 10 years or their fleet are getting too old. , they are starting to gain a bad rep no wonder they are suffering,

originally posted by: AlphaHawk
a reply to: Zaphod58

Ha! Wouldn't surprise me.

Was it Gran Torino that he did that?

Only weird thing I've seen was a set of spotlights from one of the site utes (I did FIFO myself), the prick stole them...

Not a smart move really, firstly because he gets put on a blacklist that all the big miners share, thusly never gets employed in the industry ever again.

And secondly, he could have bought those same spotties, brand new for 3 hours work...

Another hour or two and he could have got them fitted! Bwahaha

haha maybe he just willing to pay to have them fitted so it was only 2 hours work he needed to do.. Shortcut guy..

originally posted by: the2ofusr1
a reply to: AlphaHawk Well it wasn't a fuel fire TG ..I would imagine just shutting down the engine would stop all the sparks ...

The ALF engines on 146's windmill quite nicely - they have to be locked when inop'ed on the wing to prevent it.

Looks to me like the engine shat a bearing or had a similar mechanical failure rather than caught fire - and the sparks stopped when everything that could grind against something else had done so!!

Not a distinction that would be obvious or important to passengers looking out the window of course!!

Freaky.

I read in the news today that two planes collided in California. Both the pilots knew eachother and in fact had talked before going their separate ways only to later crash into eachother airborne.

www.foxnews.com...

One died, the other landed safely.

a reply to: Aloysius the Gaul I think you have made a correct assumption there Aloysius. Its not a fire but almost certainly a blade/stator off event. Somebody is going to have a nice collection of melted little balls from the tail pipe to souvenir! Not to mention some potential overtime money for an unscheduled engine change. Although those little APU sized engines are so small I reckon two blokes on either side could lift them off and on in about 10mins. Hehehehe....

a reply to: amraks Hi Amrak. Strictly speaking that 146 isn't owned and operated by Qantas. Its owned by Cobham who provide some services to the Qantas group mainly in the form of the Qantaslink branded 717's you see flying around the country. That particular one was operating FIFO in WA.

However I take your point about the gradual slide in QF's engineering capability over the last decade or so. It is now coming back to haunt them on an almost weekly basis. And yet senior management and the execs still think its nothing to worry about and all the groups problems are magically caused by someone else. They seem to be under the impression that maintenance is now about just "filling in the paperwork , and ticking the right boxes" to keep the regulator happy. And the constantly blurted mantra that these modern planes need so much less maintenance, a lie they swallowed based on manufacturer sales BS and regurgitated to the public via clueless media types. FACT, a 2-5 year old A-380 requires more maintenance hours than a 10-15 year old 747, in fact it is routinely double or more. The excuse now is that "everybody else is doing it this way" and to an extent they are correct. Most members of the travelling public would be pretty shocked to see how some VERY reputable airlines handle their maintenance. But the difference is they tend to roll over their fleets much quicker before big problems surface. Added to that is the irony that planes don't fall out of the sky from systems or maintenance failures much any more because so many backups and fail safes have been engineered into modern aircraft. So in essence they are tending to fly on backup where it is hidden from view to a large extent, be it structural, mechanical or avionic because the temptation and cost pressure is there to do it. Not a great recipe. Plus you add to that the fact that much maintenance, particularly heavy is being conducted in developing economies where it is cheap but there has frequently been a culture of "near enough is good enough", and you have the end result of lower quality and higher defect rates. Why do I say this? Because I have personally seen this happening more and more in recent years. I have just dealt with a large number of defects that were either not rectified by a well known SE Asian branch of a European airline, or in quite a few cases were caused by them. That incudes the aircraft being damaged in maintenance and returned to the operator in that condition, and this isn't the first time. Sad isn't it?
Ok, sorry rant over.

LEE.

originally posted by: thebozeian
a reply to: Aloysius the Gaul---->Although those little APU sized engines are so small I reckon two blokes on either side could lift them off and on in about 10mins. Hehehehe....

The 146 have 5 LF-507 APU's, right?

a reply to: Ivar_Karlsen
some of the marketing hype for 146's included the front cargo hold door being big enough to take an engine, and BAe stood for "Bring Another Engine".......!!

The engine was supposed to be able to be kept on eth wing and just have modules changed - but the airline I worked for figured it was simpler to change the engine - IIRC (over 20 yrs ago now!) it took 4 guys about 2 hrs if they were good from 1st panel unbuttoned to last panel done up again. Those were 502's tho - not 507's.