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CNN is the new FOX. Seriously. Talk about a misleading headline...
Originally posted by CNN
The British Airways jet's fire indication light did come on at some point, the source close to the investigation said. And the plane did have fire suppression equipment that was deployed, but it didn't extinguish the fire.
Of course not. Engine fire suppression is for contained fire between the engine and the engine cowling. If the engine blasts through the cowling and lights up another part of the plane, guess what...
Originally posted by B757300
Of course the media will do everything they can to sensationalize it and if possible, create a "scandal" of some kind.
...or provide something for the ambulance chasers to ambulance chase...
CNN is the new FOX. Seriously. Talk about a misleading headline...
Misleading? The fire suppression system did not suppress the fire. I think that falls well within the definition of the phrase "did not work".
If you infer from the headline that the system malfunctioned, then that inference could be incorrect. But in that scenario I don't think CNN should get all the blame - although I do agree with your general premise that they tend to sensationalize things.
Misleading? The fire suppression system did not suppress the fire. I think that falls well within the definition of the phrase "did not work".
If you infer from the headline that the system malfunctioned, then that inference could be incorrect. But in that scenario I don't think CNN should get all the blame - although I do agree with your general premise that they tend to sensationalize things.
If you don't find that to be a 100% sensationalized and misleading headline, perhaps you should go work for them.
As far as we know (including CNN) the fire suppression system worked as designed. Therefore it worked. It wasn't enough to suppress the fire, but that doesn't make for a tantalizing headline does it...
If you interviewed 50 of the people standing on the ramp watching that airplane burn and asked them "did the fire suppression system work", how many do you think would say "yes"?
If you interviewed 50 of the people standing on the ramp watching that airplane burn and asked them "did the fire suppression system work", how many do you think would say "yes"?
I would think we could hold a supposedly reputable international news organization like CNN to a slightly higher standard than random people/passengers from the flight. They're supposed to do some research into these matters, not just re-state blind uninformed opinion.
In this case, the fire suppression system in question is and was not meant to handle what happened. So saying "it didn't work" is misleading.
I've been calling CNN "Confusion News Network" for a while, because that is pretty much what they're best at.
I think you guys are trying to turn something which is a matter of perspective into a black-and-white issue.
From an engineering perspective, most likely the suppression system did in fact work. Presumably it's speced to deliver X pounds of Halon (or whatever agent) to a certain area in Y seconds and it did in fact deliver X pounds of agent to that area in Y seconds.
But from a lay person's perspective, the job of a fire suppression system is to suppress a fire. In this case, did the fire suppression system suppress the fire? No.
When your Windows computer blue-screens, do you say the computer is "working perfectly" because all the components functioned exactly as they were designed to?
Or as another example a little more on-topic: was the flight control system in AF447 entirely without fault in the accident because it performed completely in accordance with its design specs? I know some people here say "yes", but I've seen others disagree.
IS the fire suppression system in place to extinguish or control the evolution of a fire so that the passengers can get off the aircraft safely?
I am under the impression that they likely can not put out all fires, and the ultimate goal is to control the fire long enough to get the passengers off the plane. From that perspective, it worked perfectly. Everyone is on the tarmac talking to the press, Boeing and GE won this round.
I think you guys are trying to turn something which is a matter of perspective into a black-and-white issue.
From an engineering perspective, most likely the suppression system did in fact work. Presumably it's speced to deliver X pounds of Halon (or whatever agent) to a certain area in Y seconds and it did in fact deliver X pounds of agent to that area in Y seconds.
But from a lay person's perspective, the job of a fire suppression system is to suppress a fire. In this case, did the fire suppression system suppress the fire? No.
When your Windows computer blue-screens, do you say the computer is "working perfectly" because all the components functioned exactly as they were designed to?
Or as another example a little more on-topic: was the flight control system in AF447 entirely without fault in the accident because it performed completely in accordance with its design specs? I know some people here say "yes", but I've seen others disagree.
lol...I see what you're getting at here, but from another perspective, if you are Boeing, would you be happy that CNN is blasting the headline "Jet's suppression system didn't work" when we actually still don't know if A. it did or did not work properly, and in any case B. that regardless it was not designed to handle a fire and un-contained failure of this type anyway? In which case the whole thing is moot.
Having a headline that says it "didn't work" and then burying this inside the article:
The British Airways jet's fire indication light did come on at some point, the source close to the investigation said. And the plane did have fire suppression equipment that was deployed, but it didn't extinguish the fire.
Investigators are looking into a few possibilities such as whether or not the fire suppression equipment worked properly or whether a fuel line ruptured, causing the fire to spread.
...is straight up misleading man! It's making headline worthy claim that stirs up some controversy and then admitting within the article that we actually have no idea whether or not that claim has any truth to it.
We have no reason to expect anything less from major news networks on matters like these, but that doesn't make it any less bullsh*t.
IS the fire suppression system in place to extinguish or control the evolution of a fire so that the passengers can get off the aircraft safely?
I am under the impression that they likely can not put out all fires, and the ultimate goal is to control the fire long enough to get the passengers off the plane. From that perspective, it worked perfectly. Everyone is on the tarmac talking to the press, Boeing and GE won this round.
I would assume that the design goal for the system is for it to be able to extinguish any type of fire that reasonably would be anticipated.
Keep in mind that 99% of the time that the engines are running, aircraft are airborne. The engine fire suppression system only delivers suppression agent for a few seconds at most. That usually would not be long enough to make a significant difference in getting pax out of the aircraft, and definitely is not long enough to get the aircraft down from 30,000 feet onto a runway, stopped, and the pax evacuated.
Investigators are looking into a few possibilities such as whether or not the fire suppression equipment worked properly or whether a fuel line ruptured, causing the fire to spread.
The suppression equipment worked properly, OR a fuel line ruptured?
It seems pretty possible and even likely to me that both happened.
Having a headline that says it "didn't work" and then burying this inside the article:
Fair enough, but you can't put the entire article in the headline... that's why it's called a "headline". And when you summarize an n-page article in one (short) sentence, you're necessarily going to lose some nuance.
I will admit that maybe the headline could have been worded with a bit less exaggeration. But I will say 1) that this is by no means limited to CNN... major press organizations do this kind of thing all the time. And 2) honestly I think this is one of the less egregious examples of this kind of thing. Not that any number of wrongs makes a right, but IMHO this isn't nearly as bad as "Aircraft forced to return to airport after onboard emergency" when the toilet gets clogged.
The airplane's fire suppression systems will be absolutely useless for these kind of fires. They will not buy you one extra second.
There are basically 2 kind of these systems. One for engine fires and one for cargo hold fires. This fire was none of these, so asking how good they were at it here is like saying that a pax in the terminal saw the airplane burning, took an extinguisher from the wall and discharged it. How good was it?
It looks to me that this was a pool fire, that's why it started several seconds after the plane stopped. In my hypothesis (that is nothing more than that by now), the sequence would be like this:
There was an uncontained engine failure.
Shrapnel severed fuel tanks or fuel lines.
Fuel started to spill. With the airplane in motion, that is not much of a problem.
When the plane stopped, the fuel started to form a puddle or pool (hence the name) and something (hot brakes, hot shrapnel from the engine, sparks) ignited it.
The fuel still kept spilling so the fire had a constant source of fuel to keep burning. In the meantime it also burned the composite fuselage/wing fairing and other combustible materials.
When the firefighters arrived and started to spray AFFF they put out the fire almost immediately, because it was all external. The water cools the hot parts, the foam covers the fuel depriving it from O2, and the force of the AFFF jets washes out the fuel too. It seems to me that there was very little "real" source of energy for the fire other than the jet fuel. The composites have fire retardants that make then unable to sustain fire by themselves. They can burn but with an external source of energy, because their burning takes more energy than it creates.
--- Judge what is said by the merits of what is said, not by the credentials of who said it. ---
--- Defend what you say with arguments, not by imposing your credentials ---
elaw, you are building a house of cards here. The news media had an ethical responsibility to get information from credible sources and not to contort that information in the interests of getting the public's attention. It's called ethical journalism, or at least it used to be... Is the lay person a credible source for technical information? No.
Nothing, NOTHING, can prevent the propagation of fire and structural damage caused by an uncontained engine failure, particularly when it happens to the world's largest turbofan engine. Yes, there is fire suppression within the nacelle and the casing is somewhat armoured, but a rotor disc fragment departing at 100+ N1 is going to cause serious damage to the airframe. A hot fragment embedded in a composite structure could possibly cause it to ignite and these structures are flammable at a lower temperature than aluminum. If a fragment ruptures a fuel line or tank... you get the idea.
So, what kind of fire suppression system is going to 'work' there? The kind with eight wheels and a cannon, that's what.
To print a headline implying that a fire suppression system "didn't work" here is the nadir of bad journalism. Period. End of story.
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