787 Incident Heathrow
Ian Witter
24 June 2014
AOA Ops and Safety Conference
787 Incident
787 Incident
Build Up
• Full emergency declared 15.26 hours PIA Boeing 777 cargo fire reported
• Evacuation via airbridge. Captain fired all on board fire extinguishers; alarm not
silenced.
• Issue found to be gas from rotten fruit in cargo hold
• Incident stood down at 16.26hrs
787 Incident
Build Up
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1533 hours Local Standby Ground declared for a Virgin Atlantic A340 with
smoke issuing from port undercarriage.
Incident stood down at 1612 hours
AFS resources were deployed to both of these calls prior to responding to the
787 incident
787
Fire Station
787 Incident
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TOC 16.34hrs, 8 minutes after the PIA was closed down at which point AFS
resources were still committed to post incident equipment maintenance.
Due to the location of the 787 AFS in attendance at 16.34hrs but with limited
resources at this point.
Smoke was visible from top of aircraft, from rear right door, cargo hold &
avionics hatch.
Cat 0 declared by Station Manager (AFS) 16.40hrs
787 Incident
• AFS BA located the source of the fire and extinguished using Halon to enable
the ceiling void panels to be removed. This exposed the fire, which was
extinguished with water from hose reels.
• Boeing engineers called forward from RVP to assist with cargo door opening.
• AFS personnel confirmed no secondary fire source in cargo or avionics hatches.
787 Incident
• Cat 7 declared 17.36hrs
787 Incident
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Cat 10 Fire Cover restored 17.48hrs
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Downgraded to Local Standby
later
S4/2014 published by AAIB 18/06/2014
ELT battery thermal runaway - wiring of ELT.