When things turned not that good... (video)

[Uncle Chô]

http://www.youtube.com/v/hhMEN959voE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhMEN959voE&eurl=

This is a video from a factory aircraft Airbus A340-600 (the longest A340) during emergency breaking tests (probably around 2002 or 2003) at Istres-Le Tube Air Base (south of France). They simulated an aborted take off followed by an emergency breaking then taxied back to the stand.

You can listen to the onboard communications between the flight crew and the ground (in French). This was a controled test closely monitored by the Fire Rescue Team and an outside observator in the Control Tower, commenting what he was seeing.

At first, the exercise went OK. They stopped at the end of the runway to cool down the brakes. The crew is asking the firemen not to hose the landing gears despite the heavy smoke -the brakes pads are reaching their maximum temperatures- to see what was happening and record it on the camera but things turned a bit ...harder.

This became funny because the relaxing test crew was now stressing and asking to exit the aircraft ASAP and requesting an access ladder that was not originally scheduled! Despite their repeated calls ("Escalier!!") they seemed to had no answer from the ground...and became very upset. The 9 mn video stopped at that very moment where they feel ...lonely ;-)

For the record they finally got their acces ladder and no one was hurt.

rofl

[cylexx75]

Damn.......they need to look into a new breaking system....WOW

[Pille1234]

next they need to look into a new fire department rofl

[gregb]

What caused those explosions ?

[Gauntlet]

next they need to look into a new fire department

If you want to stand next to a exploding tire with 200 lbs psi AT LEAST then be my guest. Those things can kill with they pop.

[fuzzyramirez]

What caused those explosions ?

The brakes probably got so hot that the heat blew out the tires. It would take a great deal of heat to do that, since airplane tires are basically all steel belts wrapped with extra hard rubber, and probably filled with 200psi or more.

[fox_111]

Interesting. Poor pilots.

"On se gerbe les mecs!"
Hahaha!

They could have used the inflatable emergency slide hehe.

[Pille1234]

If you want to stand next to a exploding tire with 200 lbs psi AT LEAST then be my guest. Those things can kill with they pop.
That's what I mean. No need to stand next to a burning tire with a dripping garden hose. With a little more water preassure everything would have been fine, even from a save distance. And when we are at it, why not use the foam cannon from the fire engine in the background?

[LEGEND]

Accidents happen, thats why they have tests. Better happen during a test then with passengers on board.

Fire department's response was pathetic, took them few min to get some preassure into that hose. Notice the fire truck in the background with a firefighting canon on top, it didn't even move!!

[22.5degrees]

Remember folks, whether it be an aborted take-off or an actual crash. EXIT THE AIRCRAFT ASAP AND RUN!!!!

22.5

[556fmj]

That was the worse Airport Fire Fighting crew I ever seen. Are they a bunch of rookies or something.

[Uncle Chô]

Fire department's response was pathetic, took them few min to get some preassure into that hose. Notice the fire truck in the background with a firefighting canon on top, it didn't even move!!
No. This was not an emergency or an unexpected incident with an aircraft full with passengers that required the big armada and firetrucks with foam but a manufacturer's test on a military airfield similar to Patuxent River or Edwards that sees a lot of tests for civilian and military aircraft (FYI this base housed U-2Rs and KC-135s for months a few years ago and is also an alternate airport for the Space Shuttle in case of emergency).

As I wrote earlier, the test pilot is asking the firemen not to go into action but only to cool down the wheels. This was part of the testing process, to see what happens when the brakes are too hot. Even when the first flames erupted as expected, everyone stayed calm and they still asked not to hose down.

What turned wrong was the fact that they could not get the ladder on time, lost control with the ground for a while and fell a bit abandonned while there was big flames under the belly!

Inflating the emergency slides is very costly and would have been the last thing to do, unless their lives was threatened.

[LEGEND]

Oh so the fire was one of the planned contingencies, that explains it. But still when big flames broke out they should have used the foam because there was a clear risk of losing the whole plane if the fuel tanks would have ignited.

340 is a good plane, about 2 years ago I flew in a brand new SwissAir 340 that was less then a week in the fleet:) Gotta love the smell of a brand new airplane.

[Uncle Chô]

Oh so the fire was one of the planned contingencies, that explains it. But still when big flames broke out they should have used the foam because there was a clear risk of losing the whole plane if the fuel tanks would have ignited.

Precisely. At one moment when they started to taxi after the aborted take off followed by the emergency breaking, the pilot asked the First officer to retract the flaps "in case there are flames erupting from the landing gears". They knew what would (may had) happened. Except the com problem and the missing ladder to evacuate the airplane :cantbeli:

And you will later see the firemen used foam, once all of the tyres exploded. They were cautious not to drown this costly aircraft that was supposed to fly again.

I agree that if you do not understand the language that explains a lot of what was going on, the images tell another story ;-)

[LEGEND]

I agree that if you do not understand the language that explains a lot of what was going on, the images tell another story ;-)

Yep, looks like a comedy! A plane catches fire at which point a lone firefighter comes with a hose that drips water on the ground in front of him trying to put the fire out:) Later on they got some preassure into the hose but during the initial attempts it looked like he would have better chances of putting the fire out by releaving himself on the landing gearrofl

[Miles Teg]

Impressive !

This is not only the tires but also the metal parts that are exploding. Do you see the size of the first fragment?

I think leaking cold water on really high temperature metal or carbon is not a really good idea.
Thermal shock cannot kill you only in the sea.

[Refueler]

Ok, everything might have been under control all the time but the firefighter going in first didn´t seem to be satisfied with the water pressure. He seemed to say this: :fork: So there was something wrong with the equipment. No doubt that the whole "cooling"-scene doesn´t look very professional. Nice video! rofl

[LEGEND]

the firefighting scene was hilarious. I was laughing when I was watching it, especially the part where the firefighter frustrated he could not reach the landing gear with the little water coming out of his hose decided to put out the fire on a hubcap(or some other piece of gear) that flew off and landed close to him.

[Uncle Chô]

Pictures of the aftermath:

http://coppermine.luchtzak.be/albums/userpics/10001/a34602.jpg

http://coppermine.luchtzak.be/albums/userpics/10001/a34603.jpg

http://coppermine.luchtzak.be/albums/userpics/10001/a34604.jpg

http://coppermine.luchtzak.be/albums/userpics/10001/a34605.jpg

© http://coppermine.luchtzak.be/index.php

If you want to open a flame war (rofl ) you could also see how the Triple Seven apparently passed the test where the A340-600 failed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5N2uBqJbVU

p-)

[Refueler]

To stop this "french equipment is crap-american is better"-flame, let´s just say: Buy leading german firefighter equipment! http://www.flughafenfeuerwehr-frankfurt-hahn.de/Bilder/simba_hahn570.jpg p-)