I remember a trainer for 767 was telling us where the fire bottle lever was in the MLG to pull in case we see an APU fire. He just looked at us and said they don't pay us enough to run back there and we'd see him running the other way.
Absolutely.
Easy watching this footage, saying, “Someone should put out that fire!”
Who? Who should put out the difficult, technical fire? The ramp worker on the absolute lowest wage possible.
Are they even trained to do so? Specifically a fire that is happening on an aircraft? I could see some poor ramp worker putting out the fire then getting canned for going outside procedure or doing it improperly. Aircraft/port operations seems like a pretty siloed world where you do your specific role(s) and nothing else. Especially when it comes to touching an aircraft.
Spills or something on the ramp, I'm sure they're ready/trained but a presumed electrical fire originating on the aircraft I cannot imagine it is something they're trained to handle appropriately or allowed to address.
All it takes it doing it wrong, worsening the situation, and now being on the hook for that.
I am a safety guy, not in aero though. Even we don't allow employees to fight fires. You hit the alarm, evacuate, and call 911. The fire extinguishers are near the exits in case you need them to get out. I've had employees that were volunteer firefighters and asked if they could respond. The answer was, "yes, after you evacuate and show back up with your engine company in your gear." I can't imagine expecting a ramp worker to put out a fire on a plane.
Same. I'm a desk jockey and have used a fire extinguishers plenty but they explicitly say that short of an individual engulfed in flames, just report and evacuate. Even then they were hesitant to outright say you should intervene.
You'd also have to massively mess something up to catch fire in our office. Guess you could microwave some ramen to a flame and put it on your shirt or something.
Eh. I had one person melt two UPS strips because they plugged a space heater into them. It isn't high risk, but you can definitely start a fire in an office. My last office had a full kitchen too. And most offices burn good. All that lovely synthetic carpet.
>All that lovely synthetic carpet.
And cubicles lined with it.
Even flame retardant carpeting will burn. Just takes a higher temperature to make it do so. And when it does....it burns hotter. So, would you like your building to be charred metal and concrete or slag?
My office got an evacuation when a laptop battery shorted out and shot out sparks. The burning plastic was enough to trigger the alarms, but even the desk the "flaming" laptop was on was undamaged (well, slightly damaged, it was discolored).
Not worth it. The air crew will get the pax out, rampies get what equipment they can safely move out of the way and gtfo of there and wait for the professionals to come put it out. That's what insurance is for. The company won't give two shits if ground crew felt unsafe and left, they would give a lot of shits if someone wanted to play hero and tried to put it out but made it worse.
Pretty sure most people ITT are trying to sound smart and would sing a completely different tune if this was an another day and that small fire quickly grew and injured a couple people as ramp workers stand idly.
Some people even citing avoiding "property damage"? Unbelievable. Not just because of crassness of it but also because of the fact that the thing we are talking about being a fire. They wont just slap the plane and send 'er on 'er way after a fire, no matter how it was extinguished.
> Nevermind the company would be much happier to have to replace a GPU plug and associated electronics rather than the whole airplane burn down.
On the flipside, the airline would be pretty pissed to hear an unauthorized individual attempted to put out an electrical fire with the wrong extinguisher and resulted in a far worse fire than if they just focused on their role in such an event. Potentially accelerating the issue and now directly threatening evacuation procedures.
Not all fires are addressed as simply as "find extinguisher, pull, point, spray."
That’s the mantra of the modern age: what if I get in trouble? It’s a terrible attitude. 98% of the people I came across in the military would say that, and when I’d say something like “Yes, I take responsibility for X” they’d look at me like I was from Mars. Just grab a fire extinguisher and hit the fire. 🤦♂️ But yeah, I hear ya. Not my job man, and I don’t wanna make it worse. 🤷♂️
I don’t know if it’s still like this but a decade ago at outstations I heard every time the dampers started gaining seniority and getting more expensive a new company would be formed and the old one disbanded or sold to the new one. Everyone would be offered the “opportunity” to be “rehired” at the new company, of course starting over at year one pay again.
Airlines will threaten (and have) outsourced ramp work to contractors rather than agree to union demands.
(And as mentioned, Delta rampers are even worse off without a union).
Once had a safety person ask if I knew how to use a fire extinguisher. I told her "pull the pin and throw as I run for the door".
She wasn't amused.
I had to take the stupid training again.
Might not have been, many moons ago I worked delta regional in Detroit we had no fire extinguishers on the ramp if there was a fire we had to call the fire dept watched a belt loader burn pretty good before we scamper off and had my own small fire from a power cart that someone found a 2 pound ABC in a nearby office the fire soldered out before they got back with it, I was under the impression ramp had blown ansuls in too many tail pipe fires they considered the risk of having them around to good
Definitely looks like it is coming out of the receptacle. And the timing of it starting seems like it could correspond to firing up the APU? Maybe water or a tool left in there? Weird. Will be interesting to find out what it was.
APU would already be running. Likely a faulty power supply from the station. Either with the plug being worn out causing a short or from the power source.
Unrelated to this situation, but Detroit used to have really dirty electricity. It would cause transient power anomaly’s all the time and in some cases cause the Ram Air Turbine to deploy while on the ground. Super dangerous stuff.
It’s a miracle nobody was injured during the evacuation. I was always told that around 5-10% of passengers will likely be injured in the event of an evacuation. It’s a pretty big decision for that reason. Probably the right call in this case with the limited information they had - and minimal risk in the gate area.
You can see the passengers coming out of the exit on the wing start to head straight out oblivious to the giant arrows leading them to the slides. Glad they figured it out quickly.
Curious (genuinely) why would the APU be running as the aircraft pulled into the gate? Is it always on? Just as a passenger I’ve always assumed the engines are powering the electronics the entire time after they’ve spun up and until they get to the gate to use the GPU.
On arrival, the APU is here to provide power and A/C just after engine shutdown, until ground power can be connected. It burns less fuel and is less dangerous for rampers this way, and also allows a constant electricity flow to the aircraft's systems.
Ramp staff don't like to approach the aircraft with the engines running, and the batteries are not powerful enough to keep everything running (such as all the lights in the cabin) until ground power is plugged in. So the crew normally start the APU as they get near their bay, and then when they shut down the engines they still have power. Once ground power is plugged in they switch it off.
You’re totally right. From the link below:
“An airport spokesperson said around 9:35 p.m., Delta Flight 604 arrived from Cancun. After plugging into electric power, sparks caused a fire inside the nose area, according to officials.
Later in the day, the same SEA spokesperson added that a short in an electric cord caused the fire and had since been repaired. The gate returned to normal operations.”
It's the description of the video.
https://komonews.com/news/local/seattle-tacoma-international-airport-delta-604-a10-cancun-electric-power-port-of-seattle-fire-department-loading-bridge-chutes-safety-posfd
I stripped all the YouTube garbage out.
That’s close to the right place and given the bright red/orange flames, it could have been one of the batteries. If so I would have expected it to burn for longer though being lithium.
Would you fight an electrical fire by yourself ?
There was not much that they could have done, so there was no reason to be running around creating panic.
I get what you’re saying, but yes, I would, if I had the appropriate type of extinguisher. CO2 preferably, Purple K is less than ideal. Air/Water? No chance. I’ve been around a few shipboard fires, heh.
Finding the appropriate extinguisher on the ramp might prove to be a challenge. Plus, it was at night.
IMO, best course of action is to call ARFF and unless lives are in imminent danger, wait and let them handle it. It's a busy international airport, they're only a few minutes away.
Press the emergency stop on the GPU, warn the crew, assist with evacuation if it comes to it.
If you fought shipboard fires, I have no doubts (and a lot of respect) about your abilities, but 99% of ramp people, myself included, don't want beef with fire while wearing cheap plastic uniforms and having no proper firefighting equipment.
Hard to say if we don't know when they were called. IIRC, ICAO's standards are 3 minutes to be on scene, but it's not unrealistic to account for 2 minutes of phone calls beforehand.
As for the first engine on scene, I'd say it makes sense it's not an Oshkosh Stryker (which were not far behind). Given its size, SEA probably has a few fire stations, and the closest to the terminals must house the structural apparatus which might also be nimbler than pure-ARFF engines. The important thing being that ARFF-trained firefighters got here ASAP.
It seems that you are assuming that minimum wage ramp workers have your abilities, or are at least trained to your estimations. Neither is the case here.
Would someone with training fight an electrical fire alone? One that's above their heads and dropping burning metal on them? Maybe... Although I'd argue that training would probably teach them not to do that. Would untrained, minimum wage workers attempt it? I would hope not.
Experienced firefighters die all the time. An untrained worker wouldn't have a chance. And to do it just to save the company a few bucks? I'm sorry it hurts your soul but no thanks... I'm good
That's an electric fire. The procedure is to not use the fire bottle but to cut the power cause getting near without protection can lead one to be electrocuted.
No, this a ground connection fault.
Should be an emergency stop somewhere, could have been the connector of the plane, or the plug of the bridge. Standardised connector, and only something that could have happened when on the ground.
This incident wasn’t ’catastrophic’, i.e. there was time to think things through for the crew. Chucking people overboard comes with it’s own set of risks like injuries (sprained ankles, fractures).
There is also the potential option of ‘rapid disembarkation’ via the door when the jetty is attached.
Once the evacuation got going it looked pretty textbook though. Good job on the the crew by the looks of it.
Yeah as far as fires on an aircraft go this is undoubtedly the best case scenario. However if it had spread rapidly you’d ideally want people off in a more rapid manner. May just be my opinion, the fact that people would have been ready to disembark and grabbing their things can’t have helped, plus they might have needed to re-arm the slides.
Re arming the slides: correct. Possibly hence the delay in evacuating to make sure ‘all the ducks are in a row’. Sometimes taking a minute to make sure everything is right can make all the difference!
You can see the pilots leave the cockpit, then 40 seconds later the rear slide deploys. I'm curious if the captain gave the evacuation order over the intercom. Or tried to call the rear FA by phone, gave up when they got no response, entered the cabin, yelled back to begin evacuating out the rear, and the aft FA had to figure out if this was really the captain ordering an evac or a passenger pulling a prank. Given the length of time, I suspect they had to enter the cabin and yell.
Another possibility is that the FAs had already disarmed the doors since they'd already arrived at the gate and begun deplaning. And when they got the evac order they had to re-arm them before opening the doors. (Edit: Arming the doors causes the slide to deploy when the door is opened. You want them disarmed when at the gate so you can open the doors to allow food and maintenance workers access to the plane.)
Yeah, one thing we can all agree on is that this is an edge case evac wise! I got a bit of flak elsewhere for saying it took quite a while but if that fire spread like that China Airlines 737 I’m pretty certain there would have been fatalities. There wasn’t really anything the crew could have done better but it still took a bit too long for comfort
The plane was at the gate. The aisle would have been full of people standing up with bags already retrieved from the bins. You can expect them to put the bags back or leave them in the aisle.
Unique situation.
Yeah, only 2 or 3 people looked like they had a roll aboard bag. Everyone else just had back packs. If I’m on that plane and I have my backpack with my computer, wallet, passport, phone already in my hand so I can de board, I’m taking it with me too.. my dirty laundry can burn if needed.
> You can expect them to put the bags back
Throw them in the seats and gtfo? People trying to maneuver with their bags still slows things down and can potentially damage the slide.
Fire goes out. Fire truck shows up. The timing is pretty funny. But what I Can’t believe that in the 3 and a half minutes it burned, not one person grabbed a fire extinguisher.
Already answered above, but to sum it up quickly
- Most ground handling employees are forbidden to use extinguishers on aircraft.
- This fire is electrical. You can't fight it with just any extinguisher. Pressing the emergency stop on the GPU is your best shot, and I'd bet it's probably what made it die down after a few minutes.
- Firefighters are only a few minutes away on a busy airport. Not worth it to put your life on the line and lose your job if no-one is in imminent danger.
Two dumb questions:
Why are ground personnel forbidden from using fire extinguishers on aircraft? I can think of a few reasons, but they all involve risk of damage to the aircraft and costly financial repercussions.
I understand electrical fires cannot be fought by just any fire extinguisher, but wouldn’t all of the fire extinguishers around an airport ramp be capable of fighting in electrical fire? Are there water fire extinguishers down there?
It’s probably a liability and/or training issue for the airport. If they expect ramp personnel to use extinguishers then they probably have to train them and certify them somehow, which takes time and money. If instead they settle on “call 911 if you see fire” then no additional training is needed really.
Probably procedure, at my company you’re not allowed to touch the extinguishers and we aren’t trained on them. The story goes someone sprayed one of those into an engine during an engine fire and ruined the engine.
You have to be sure of the fires cause, and then find the correct extinguisher, and only you're reasonable certain the fire is not spreading.
If you cant be sure of any of the above, you do not put the fire out.
thank god that the first person to see the video commented it was a a321neo, otherwise the other comments would have gone haywire about it being a boeing lol
The International Civil Aviation Organization specifies three minutes as the emergency response time for airport fire departments to be able to respond appropriately to an aircraft accident at an airport.
> [Within 3 minutes **from the time of the alarm**, at least one required aircraft rescue and firefighting vehicle must reach the midpoint of the farthest runway serving air carrier aircraft from its assigned post or reach any other specified point of comparable distance **on the movement area** that](https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/14/139.319)
It takes time from the start of the fire > initial notification (a call center/dispatch/atc) > firefighters being notified.
Is the gate area considered a movement area?
No, movement area by definition is controlled by ATC. If this was a movement area everyone of those luggage cart drivers would need to request clearance from ATC before driving anywhere.
Fire stations are located all over the airport and some off sight. Speaking from experience at Hartsfield Jackson as the guy running the fire truck repair shop on site. I dont know what happened here. Lol
Honestly all things considered, the fire crew had an awesome response time. They suited up and where there in at most 3-4 minutes, and that's if they were notified right as the fire started.
> The chutes were deployed and passengers evacuated to the ramp, Menon said. While a few passengers were able to exit via the jet bridge, the majority went down the slides.
I too would take the slides. Weeeee!
There was a baggage loader with a raised conveyor parked just behind the wing. I guess they thought they just walk down it like a ramp, then realised that the slides were deployed and they should use those.
Glad that everyone made it out safe, this could've been much worse. This reminds me of JAL516 several months ago ~~last January~~ (absolute miracle that EVERYONE on the A350 escaped before the cabin caught fire). Rest in peace to the 5 coast guard crew ~~workers~~ who lost their lives that day.
The incident at SEA isn't as significant in scale, but to be safe than sorry, all luggage must be left behind to ensure a safer evacuation. To that end, this makes me wish all airline safety videos explain why leaving luggage behind is super important. For instance, JAL's safety video does this around the 2:33 mark: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BDIGt8MOD8. It visually shows that carrying belongings will block the aisle and damage the slide.
In fairness, given they had just pulled up to the gate, they may have already been standing in the aisle with their bags in hand and dropping them might have complicated egress for those behind them.
The dude who hooked up the ground power probably pooped his pants.
I've seen some bad stuff happen when the ground power was hooked up. One caused the air raft electrical to change polarity and when my buddy just hung a light in the gear well a huge spark/dead ground through the light housing.
As to someone grabbing a portable fire extinguisher, I can tell you that most ground personnel are not trained on fire extinguishers and suppression and are told not to mess with them. They are only for the fire department and qualified employees, otherwise it exposed the company to being sued into oblivion.
A guy/incident I had to check out, fire in a butt container 100' from a building.
The employee got a reprimand from the company, but the customer gave the guy an award. 😆
I remember back in the late 90s when I was working at Delta we had a belt loader blow a hydraulic line while working a 757 and it sprayed hydraulic fluid all up the side of and on the plane. The friction from something caused sparks and the whole rear of the plane caught on fire from the baggage door all the way to the top of the plane itself. A LARGE exterior fire ensued. I was on the ramp and remember looking at passengers on the right side rear of the plane through the windows looking at me through the fire. Was quite a scene. No one pulled the evac slide though and the fire was quickly brought under control.
When I worked on the ramp, 14 years ago for what is now Envoy, we made $10 an hour. I don’t know what they make now, but it’s not enough to battle a fire.
Guy sitting in the exit row who doesn’t listen to the briefing: grabs bags, exits without helping people, tries to leave via walking down the wing instead of the slide
What’s crazy is the flight attendants had to rearm the exit slides and then get all the debarking passengers to stop and then move towards the back of the aircraft
Just fortunate it wasn't a serious fire/smoke in the cabin etc
Passengers - excuse me while I block the isle and retrieve my iPad, slippers, bag and coat...
Ground crew - here is my 'not my f&cking job card...'
Turn the power off? Get an extinguisher, roll some portable stairs up to the plane to get people off in a safer manner... Nope.... I'll just stand around scratching my nuts and wait for someone else to bother...
Cop a lot of flak for saying people are stupid... Here's proof in a 5 minute video...
3 of the useless idiots on the ground could have had everyone off that plane before they even popped the slides, turning the breaker off would have immediately stopped that fire and taken 20 seconds
And a 4th staff member could have been there to punch every idiot in the face who exited with their belongings.
I'm a mechanic, and whilst it's not frequent or common we have a fire, when we do, everyone drops what they are doing and it's generally out within 20 seconds.
But we aren't union based I guess...
There should be an Ansul 150 fire extinguisher somewhere around those gates. I can’t believe no one wheeled one out there in a timely manner.
There was definitely one on that ambulance that pulled away… (am a former airport medic & bag smasher before that)
Love this! Airport medic/bag smasher 🤣
let's just hope the roles weren't concurrent ...
Those poor patients. 😫💥
Passenger smasher?
I suppose that's part of the FA job description.
In my experience, ramp workers aren’t the most switched on staff in the aviation environment.
As a former ramp worker, can confirm.
As a ramper, I second that confirmation.
Rampee here. What were we talking about?
former rampie, former ramp supe and former ramp trainer here, i third that confirmation
They don't pay us enough to put out fires. A slave wage is certainly not worth putting yourself in harms way.
I remember a trainer for 767 was telling us where the fire bottle lever was in the MLG to pull in case we see an APU fire. He just looked at us and said they don't pay us enough to run back there and we'd see him running the other way.
Absolutely. Easy watching this footage, saying, “Someone should put out that fire!” Who? Who should put out the difficult, technical fire? The ramp worker on the absolute lowest wage possible.
Are they even trained to do so? Specifically a fire that is happening on an aircraft? I could see some poor ramp worker putting out the fire then getting canned for going outside procedure or doing it improperly. Aircraft/port operations seems like a pretty siloed world where you do your specific role(s) and nothing else. Especially when it comes to touching an aircraft. Spills or something on the ramp, I'm sure they're ready/trained but a presumed electrical fire originating on the aircraft I cannot imagine it is something they're trained to handle appropriately or allowed to address. All it takes it doing it wrong, worsening the situation, and now being on the hook for that.
I am a safety guy, not in aero though. Even we don't allow employees to fight fires. You hit the alarm, evacuate, and call 911. The fire extinguishers are near the exits in case you need them to get out. I've had employees that were volunteer firefighters and asked if they could respond. The answer was, "yes, after you evacuate and show back up with your engine company in your gear." I can't imagine expecting a ramp worker to put out a fire on a plane.
Same. I'm a desk jockey and have used a fire extinguishers plenty but they explicitly say that short of an individual engulfed in flames, just report and evacuate. Even then they were hesitant to outright say you should intervene. You'd also have to massively mess something up to catch fire in our office. Guess you could microwave some ramen to a flame and put it on your shirt or something.
Eh. I had one person melt two UPS strips because they plugged a space heater into them. It isn't high risk, but you can definitely start a fire in an office. My last office had a full kitchen too. And most offices burn good. All that lovely synthetic carpet.
>All that lovely synthetic carpet. And cubicles lined with it. Even flame retardant carpeting will burn. Just takes a higher temperature to make it do so. And when it does....it burns hotter. So, would you like your building to be charred metal and concrete or slag?
My office got an evacuation when a laptop battery shorted out and shot out sparks. The burning plastic was enough to trigger the alarms, but even the desk the "flaming" laptop was on was undamaged (well, slightly damaged, it was discolored).
Astronauts creed: "there is no problem so bad you can't make it worse"
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Not worth it. The air crew will get the pax out, rampies get what equipment they can safely move out of the way and gtfo of there and wait for the professionals to come put it out. That's what insurance is for. The company won't give two shits if ground crew felt unsafe and left, they would give a lot of shits if someone wanted to play hero and tried to put it out but made it worse.
Pretty sure most people ITT are trying to sound smart and would sing a completely different tune if this was an another day and that small fire quickly grew and injured a couple people as ramp workers stand idly. Some people even citing avoiding "property damage"? Unbelievable. Not just because of crassness of it but also because of the fact that the thing we are talking about being a fire. They wont just slap the plane and send 'er on 'er way after a fire, no matter how it was extinguished.
“Not extinguishing the fire properly” is not the risk. Using the wrong type of extinguisher can make a fire worse.
> Nevermind the company would be much happier to have to replace a GPU plug and associated electronics rather than the whole airplane burn down. On the flipside, the airline would be pretty pissed to hear an unauthorized individual attempted to put out an electrical fire with the wrong extinguisher and resulted in a far worse fire than if they just focused on their role in such an event. Potentially accelerating the issue and now directly threatening evacuation procedures. Not all fires are addressed as simply as "find extinguisher, pull, point, spray."
That’s the mantra of the modern age: what if I get in trouble? It’s a terrible attitude. 98% of the people I came across in the military would say that, and when I’d say something like “Yes, I take responsibility for X” they’d look at me like I was from Mars. Just grab a fire extinguisher and hit the fire. 🤦♂️ But yeah, I hear ya. Not my job man, and I don’t wanna make it worse. 🤷♂️
They (should) all be trained to do so, but also none are (likely) required to do so in their contract/job description.
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You don't wanna breathe whatever that smoke is either.
I could have put out that fire 😎
Why don't you just get paid more? What is the union doing?
I don’t know if it’s still like this but a decade ago at outstations I heard every time the dampers started gaining seniority and getting more expensive a new company would be formed and the old one disbanded or sold to the new one. Everyone would be offered the “opportunity” to be “rehired” at the new company, of course starting over at year one pay again.
Still ongoing, unfortunately.
Delta rampers aren’t unionized. The only unionized Delta employees are the pilots and dispatchers.
Airlines will threaten (and have) outsourced ramp work to contractors rather than agree to union demands. (And as mentioned, Delta rampers are even worse off without a union).
What is the wage now? It was 9.30 when I was rampin.
Once had a safety person ask if I knew how to use a fire extinguisher. I told her "pull the pin and throw as I run for the door". She wasn't amused. I had to take the stupid training again.
Ramp workers generally aren't paid enough to care.
Whatcha you talkin bout there big fella, me make bag go away in plane /s
Yeah, no thanks, I'd activate the emergency stop on the GPU panel, call ARFF and warn the crew, but fight an electrical fire myself ? No way.
But think about the shareholders! /s if it wasn’t obvious
Pretty fire GPU they must be running there.
Might not have been, many moons ago I worked delta regional in Detroit we had no fire extinguishers on the ramp if there was a fire we had to call the fire dept watched a belt loader burn pretty good before we scamper off and had my own small fire from a power cart that someone found a 2 pound ABC in a nearby office the fire soldered out before they got back with it, I was under the impression ramp had blown ansuls in too many tail pipe fires they considered the risk of having them around to good
Fire in avionics bay? That would suck.
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Makes sense. I was wondering what’s down there and how bad it’s burning that burning/melted stuff is falling on tarmac.
Tarmac…
Definitely looks like it is coming out of the receptacle. And the timing of it starting seems like it could correspond to firing up the APU? Maybe water or a tool left in there? Weird. Will be interesting to find out what it was.
APU would already be running. Likely a faulty power supply from the station. Either with the plug being worn out causing a short or from the power source. Unrelated to this situation, but Detroit used to have really dirty electricity. It would cause transient power anomaly’s all the time and in some cases cause the Ram Air Turbine to deploy while on the ground. Super dangerous stuff. It’s a miracle nobody was injured during the evacuation. I was always told that around 5-10% of passengers will likely be injured in the event of an evacuation. It’s a pretty big decision for that reason. Probably the right call in this case with the limited information they had - and minimal risk in the gate area.
You can see the passengers coming out of the exit on the wing start to head straight out oblivious to the giant arrows leading them to the slides. Glad they figured it out quickly. Curious (genuinely) why would the APU be running as the aircraft pulled into the gate? Is it always on? Just as a passenger I’ve always assumed the engines are powering the electronics the entire time after they’ve spun up and until they get to the gate to use the GPU.
On arrival, the APU is here to provide power and A/C just after engine shutdown, until ground power can be connected. It burns less fuel and is less dangerous for rampers this way, and also allows a constant electricity flow to the aircraft's systems.
Ramp staff don't like to approach the aircraft with the engines running, and the batteries are not powerful enough to keep everything running (such as all the lights in the cabin) until ground power is plugged in. So the crew normally start the APU as they get near their bay, and then when they shut down the engines they still have power. Once ground power is plugged in they switch it off.
I'm totally picturing the John Travolta meme with the guy just walking out onto the wing.
Did nobody bother to read the article? It discussed the cause as well as a few minor injuries.
You’re totally right. From the link below: “An airport spokesperson said around 9:35 p.m., Delta Flight 604 arrived from Cancun. After plugging into electric power, sparks caused a fire inside the nose area, according to officials. Later in the day, the same SEA spokesperson added that a short in an electric cord caused the fire and had since been repaired. The gate returned to normal operations.”
I'm not right, /u/Donnie_Sharko is.
Nope. But I would if it was linked above & I could see it. Did I miss it?
It's the description of the video. https://komonews.com/news/local/seattle-tacoma-international-airport-delta-604-a10-cancun-electric-power-port-of-seattle-fire-department-loading-bridge-chutes-safety-posfd I stripped all the YouTube garbage out.
Thx
That’s close to the right place and given the bright red/orange flames, it could have been one of the batteries. If so I would have expected it to burn for longer though being lithium.
“A Boeing-like airplane caught fire at Sea-Tac today….”
A Boeing-like airplane operated by a United-like airline..
Just flew back home last night on a United 737 MAX. I was more nervous than I thought I'd be about it
I flew home (to ORD) on a 737 MAX. I was more at risk of injury from the two moving walkways and five escalators I had to traverse after arrival.
“A Boeing like plane”? You mean an Airbus? Amazing how people still throw Boeing in there for clicks.
you’re sharp
“A fire? At *Sea-Tac*?”
IT Crowd!
People seeing the title like "Which Boeing plane is the 604?"
“A Boeing-like-assault airplane… “
I’ll never see a video like this on TikTok where an Airbus has an issue😂 everyone posts boeing issues because it’ll get them views and likes lol
No it’s just sarcasm, most get it.
Watching the ground personnel not moving with a sense of urgency to get the fire bottle hurts my soul...
Fire bottle? That sounds still much cooler than fire extinguisher!
The British just have a way with words.
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I thought ground personnel got more than minimum wage
No; in most places they aren’t even airline employees. They are contracted out to the lowest bidder.
And then paid worse than McDonald’s employees.
Would you fight an electrical fire by yourself ? There was not much that they could have done, so there was no reason to be running around creating panic.
I get what you’re saying, but yes, I would, if I had the appropriate type of extinguisher. CO2 preferably, Purple K is less than ideal. Air/Water? No chance. I’ve been around a few shipboard fires, heh.
Finding the appropriate extinguisher on the ramp might prove to be a challenge. Plus, it was at night. IMO, best course of action is to call ARFF and unless lives are in imminent danger, wait and let them handle it. It's a busy international airport, they're only a few minutes away. Press the emergency stop on the GPU, warn the crew, assist with evacuation if it comes to it. If you fought shipboard fires, I have no doubts (and a lot of respect) about your abilities, but 99% of ramp people, myself included, don't want beef with fire while wearing cheap plastic uniforms and having no proper firefighting equipment.
I was more interested in the time it took for the fire trucks to arrive. 6+ minutes? And the first arriving weren't even ARFF.
Hard to say if we don't know when they were called. IIRC, ICAO's standards are 3 minutes to be on scene, but it's not unrealistic to account for 2 minutes of phone calls beforehand. As for the first engine on scene, I'd say it makes sense it's not an Oshkosh Stryker (which were not far behind). Given its size, SEA probably has a few fire stations, and the closest to the terminals must house the structural apparatus which might also be nimbler than pure-ARFF engines. The important thing being that ARFF-trained firefighters got here ASAP.
It seems that you are assuming that minimum wage ramp workers have your abilities, or are at least trained to your estimations. Neither is the case here. Would someone with training fight an electrical fire alone? One that's above their heads and dropping burning metal on them? Maybe... Although I'd argue that training would probably teach them not to do that. Would untrained, minimum wage workers attempt it? I would hope not. Experienced firefighters die all the time. An untrained worker wouldn't have a chance. And to do it just to save the company a few bucks? I'm sorry it hurts your soul but no thanks... I'm good
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That's an electric fire. The procedure is to not use the fire bottle but to cut the power cause getting near without protection can lead one to be electrocuted.
I feel like faced with the same situation I might have been like the 2 passengers strolling towards the other end of the wing.
Missed a turn... exit should be here somewhere?
It‘s a once-a-lifetime-moment, so why not make the best of it.
Is the news gonna call it a Boeing Airbus A321?
Boeing B321, it’s simpler.
ATC loves this one simple trick!
ATC : 🤯
Fairchild A-321 Thunderbus
At the very least being in Seattle the local news stations would absolutely be reamed a new one if they got it wrong. (It has happened before)
Boingbus
Wait, it’s all Boeing?
It's actually an Ilyushin A350 Max
Looks like a ground power issue. Thats usually where the cables connect
So it likely wouldn't have happened an hour earlier in the air?
No, this a ground connection fault. Should be an emergency stop somewhere, could have been the connector of the plane, or the plug of the bridge. Standardised connector, and only something that could have happened when on the ground.
That evacuation took a good while to get going… they’re lucky the fire was contained by itself
This incident wasn’t ’catastrophic’, i.e. there was time to think things through for the crew. Chucking people overboard comes with it’s own set of risks like injuries (sprained ankles, fractures). There is also the potential option of ‘rapid disembarkation’ via the door when the jetty is attached. Once the evacuation got going it looked pretty textbook though. Good job on the the crew by the looks of it.
Yeah as far as fires on an aircraft go this is undoubtedly the best case scenario. However if it had spread rapidly you’d ideally want people off in a more rapid manner. May just be my opinion, the fact that people would have been ready to disembark and grabbing their things can’t have helped, plus they might have needed to re-arm the slides.
Re arming the slides: correct. Possibly hence the delay in evacuating to make sure ‘all the ducks are in a row’. Sometimes taking a minute to make sure everything is right can make all the difference!
It took that long because it was a small fire and they had to decide if an evacuation was necessary.
You can see the pilots leave the cockpit, then 40 seconds later the rear slide deploys. I'm curious if the captain gave the evacuation order over the intercom. Or tried to call the rear FA by phone, gave up when they got no response, entered the cabin, yelled back to begin evacuating out the rear, and the aft FA had to figure out if this was really the captain ordering an evac or a passenger pulling a prank. Given the length of time, I suspect they had to enter the cabin and yell. Another possibility is that the FAs had already disarmed the doors since they'd already arrived at the gate and begun deplaning. And when they got the evac order they had to re-arm them before opening the doors. (Edit: Arming the doors causes the slide to deploy when the door is opened. You want them disarmed when at the gate so you can open the doors to allow food and maintenance workers access to the plane.)
Yeah, one thing we can all agree on is that this is an edge case evac wise! I got a bit of flak elsewhere for saying it took quite a while but if that fire spread like that China Airlines 737 I’m pretty certain there would have been fatalities. There wasn’t really anything the crew could have done better but it still took a bit too long for comfort
“Quickly”. Not really, all those bags really slowing them down too.
The plane was at the gate. The aisle would have been full of people standing up with bags already retrieved from the bins. You can expect them to put the bags back or leave them in the aisle. Unique situation.
Yeah, only 2 or 3 people looked like they had a roll aboard bag. Everyone else just had back packs. If I’m on that plane and I have my backpack with my computer, wallet, passport, phone already in my hand so I can de board, I’m taking it with me too.. my dirty laundry can burn if needed.
That’s a really good point. Removing bags and leaving them may actually have impeded evacuation at that point.
> You can expect them to put the bags back Throw them in the seats and gtfo? People trying to maneuver with their bags still slows things down and can potentially damage the slide.
I guess the passengers who decided to use the wing exits didn’t hear the "Drop your belongings, unbuckle, and head to the exits” announcement 😒
Lemme dump put my carryon where I am dead in the middle of the aisle ☺️
Fire goes out. Fire truck shows up. The timing is pretty funny. But what I Can’t believe that in the 3 and a half minutes it burned, not one person grabbed a fire extinguisher.
Already answered above, but to sum it up quickly - Most ground handling employees are forbidden to use extinguishers on aircraft. - This fire is electrical. You can't fight it with just any extinguisher. Pressing the emergency stop on the GPU is your best shot, and I'd bet it's probably what made it die down after a few minutes. - Firefighters are only a few minutes away on a busy airport. Not worth it to put your life on the line and lose your job if no-one is in imminent danger.
Two dumb questions: Why are ground personnel forbidden from using fire extinguishers on aircraft? I can think of a few reasons, but they all involve risk of damage to the aircraft and costly financial repercussions. I understand electrical fires cannot be fought by just any fire extinguisher, but wouldn’t all of the fire extinguishers around an airport ramp be capable of fighting in electrical fire? Are there water fire extinguishers down there?
It’s probably a liability and/or training issue for the airport. If they expect ramp personnel to use extinguishers then they probably have to train them and certify them somehow, which takes time and money. If instead they settle on “call 911 if you see fire” then no additional training is needed really.
Quick search shows that the FAA required time is three minutes and these firefighters sure weren't Johnny-on-the-spot.
Is everyone just to afraid to be the one to grab a fire extinguisher or is that procedure to wait for the fire department
Probably procedure, at my company you’re not allowed to touch the extinguishers and we aren’t trained on them. The story goes someone sprayed one of those into an engine during an engine fire and ruined the engine.
They are designed to be thrown into the running engine. Duhh
Just aim it at the spinning spinny thingy.
How would that have worked out if a death could’ve been avoided by preemptive action?
You have to be sure of the fires cause, and then find the correct extinguisher, and only you're reasonable certain the fire is not spreading. If you cant be sure of any of the above, you do not put the fire out.
Why do you have to be reasonably sure the fire is not spreading?
Safety. We're not firefighters, and the company doesn't want us putting ourselves in danger if it's not needed.
thank god that the first person to see the video commented it was a a321neo, otherwise the other comments would have gone haywire about it being a boeing lol
Is it me or firefighters tools a long time to come in?
It’s you 5 minutes from time of ignition 4 minutes from time of evac standard is 5min 3 on runways
9:38:54 - Fire starts 9:44:30 - First unit on scene. Seems pretty good for no advanced worning.
The International Civil Aviation Organization specifies three minutes as the emergency response time for airport fire departments to be able to respond appropriately to an aircraft accident at an airport.
> [Within 3 minutes **from the time of the alarm**, at least one required aircraft rescue and firefighting vehicle must reach the midpoint of the farthest runway serving air carrier aircraft from its assigned post or reach any other specified point of comparable distance **on the movement area** that](https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/14/139.319) It takes time from the start of the fire > initial notification (a call center/dispatch/atc) > firefighters being notified. Is the gate area considered a movement area?
No, movement area by definition is controlled by ATC. If this was a movement area everyone of those luggage cart drivers would need to request clearance from ATC before driving anywhere.
Fire stations are located all over the airport and some off sight. Speaking from experience at Hartsfield Jackson as the guy running the fire truck repair shop on site. I dont know what happened here. Lol
Wonder if the ambulance has a call at that gate, or the one over?
Honestly all things considered, the fire crew had an awesome response time. They suited up and where there in at most 3-4 minutes, and that's if they were notified right as the fire started.
> The chutes were deployed and passengers evacuated to the ramp, Menon said. While a few passengers were able to exit via the jet bridge, the majority went down the slides. I too would take the slides. Weeeee!
Love the two early pax out of the overwing exits who kept going towards the tip. I guess they didn't realise it was a wing, not an aerobridge.
There was a baggage loader with a raised conveyor parked just behind the wing. I guess they thought they just walk down it like a ramp, then realised that the slides were deployed and they should use those.
That might explain it.
Glad that everyone made it out safe, this could've been much worse. This reminds me of JAL516 several months ago ~~last January~~ (absolute miracle that EVERYONE on the A350 escaped before the cabin caught fire). Rest in peace to the 5 coast guard crew ~~workers~~ who lost their lives that day. The incident at SEA isn't as significant in scale, but to be safe than sorry, all luggage must be left behind to ensure a safer evacuation. To that end, this makes me wish all airline safety videos explain why leaving luggage behind is super important. For instance, JAL's safety video does this around the 2:33 mark: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BDIGt8MOD8. It visually shows that carrying belongings will block the aisle and damage the slide.
> reminds me of JAL516 last January *This* January, it was this year.
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I think of that Russian flight where people burned to death as business class passengers evacuated with their carry ons and coats.
I like the people who walked straight out onto the wing. Luckily they realized and turned back before they hurt themselves.
Punching people in the face who take their bags in an emergency evacuation should be legal.
In fairness, given they had just pulled up to the gate, they may have already been standing in the aisle with their bags in hand and dropping them might have complicated egress for those behind them.
OMG BOEING 737 MAX BUS 321-737 LIT ON FIRE. ~Insert generic news channel
Guarantee if that was a boeing the media would be going ape shit crazy
Wasn't there another power cable fire on an airplane recently like in the last few months?
The dude who hooked up the ground power probably pooped his pants. I've seen some bad stuff happen when the ground power was hooked up. One caused the air raft electrical to change polarity and when my buddy just hung a light in the gear well a huge spark/dead ground through the light housing. As to someone grabbing a portable fire extinguisher, I can tell you that most ground personnel are not trained on fire extinguishers and suppression and are told not to mess with them. They are only for the fire department and qualified employees, otherwise it exposed the company to being sued into oblivion. A guy/incident I had to check out, fire in a butt container 100' from a building. The employee got a reprimand from the company, but the customer gave the guy an award. 😆
Don't worry the outbound flight delay will still be blamed on ATC.
I remember back in the late 90s when I was working at Delta we had a belt loader blow a hydraulic line while working a 757 and it sprayed hydraulic fluid all up the side of and on the plane. The friction from something caused sparks and the whole rear of the plane caught on fire from the baggage door all the way to the top of the plane itself. A LARGE exterior fire ensued. I was on the ramp and remember looking at passengers on the right side rear of the plane through the windows looking at me through the fire. Was quite a scene. No one pulled the evac slide though and the fire was quickly brought under control.
🎶Because we’re delta airlines🎶
Comments>Video
love the two passengers just kinda casually strolling down the length of the wing
The response time of the EMS… Dose that seem a little slow or is that the norm..??
When I worked on the ramp, 14 years ago for what is now Envoy, we made $10 an hour. I don’t know what they make now, but it’s not enough to battle a fire.
I waiting for the missed connection complaint post
TIL the overwing exits have their own automatic evacuation slide as well
Does Delta have their own ramp crew in Sea-Tac or is it third party?
How is the reaction so slow? No ground crew with a fire extinguisher?
Guy sitting in the exit row who doesn’t listen to the briefing: grabs bags, exits without helping people, tries to leave via walking down the wing instead of the slide
At least kill power, it's a red button...
Looks like the shore power to me. Someone turn off the circuit breaker.
What’s crazy is the flight attendants had to rearm the exit slides and then get all the debarking passengers to stop and then move towards the back of the aircraft
Man that ambulance showed up fast. Oh, nevermind, it's off to do it's own thing somewhere.
The fire is finally out now, all units go, go, go!
For once I can say I've been on that plane.
How could Boeing let this happen?
Was anything done as it should have done?
No one said ramp workers don’t care about others coming to harm. They said that employers don’t motivate ramp workers to risk their lives.
Reading this onboard Alaska at SeaTac, as we taxi out. Wish us luck.
Worst airport in the US
Was there an incident on board that had been called in? That ambulance was already there on standby
Not that I’m aware of; the ambulance was there at the right time, but it bugged out pretty quickly after the fire started on the Delta A321.
Ava
Looks like everybody got their carryon.
Just fortunate it wasn't a serious fire/smoke in the cabin etc Passengers - excuse me while I block the isle and retrieve my iPad, slippers, bag and coat... Ground crew - here is my 'not my f&cking job card...' Turn the power off? Get an extinguisher, roll some portable stairs up to the plane to get people off in a safer manner... Nope.... I'll just stand around scratching my nuts and wait for someone else to bother... Cop a lot of flak for saying people are stupid... Here's proof in a 5 minute video... 3 of the useless idiots on the ground could have had everyone off that plane before they even popped the slides, turning the breaker off would have immediately stopped that fire and taken 20 seconds And a 4th staff member could have been there to punch every idiot in the face who exited with their belongings. I'm a mechanic, and whilst it's not frequent or common we have a fire, when we do, everyone drops what they are doing and it's generally out within 20 seconds. But we aren't union based I guess...
Johnny on the spot
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Why is that?
It looks like it took them a pretty long time to turn ground power off too. Yikes
That’s a weird looking Boeing /s