A Review Of Recent Civil Air Transport Accidents/lncidents And Their Fire Safety Implications

Abstract

This paper presents a brief summary of recent civil air transport accidents and major incidents involving fire. It updates the paper "Investigation and Characteristics of Major Fire Related Accidents in Civil Air Transports Over the Past Ten yearsu1. A more detailed review of selected accidentslincidents is presented including their link to safety improvements made todate in fire resistant materials and their impact on improved passenger survivability and the need for improvements in aircraft systems, such as oxygen, hydraulic and electrical, to hrther improve survivability. Research and Development to reduce aircraft fire fatalities is discussed and justified using accidenttincident data. The paper discusses the problem of Halon replacement. Accidentlincident data is used to show the need to choose replacement agents that can perform well against real aircraft fires. The need for realistic test methods is discussed. The paper concludes that additional improvements in passenger fire survivability are needed and attainable. NTRODUCTION Over the past several years the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and most other aviation authorities worldwide have implemented numerous modifications to aircraft fire safety standards. Those modifications have vastly improved fire safety in transport aviation Those modifications include the following: The Seat Cushion "Fire Blocking" Rule. This rule requires that all cabin seat cushions in transport aircraft meet a large oil burner test. The result of this rule change was that most seat cushions were "fire blocked". The term fire blocking refers to encapsulating the foam with a very fire resistant material. The fire blocker is usually over urethane foam and under the outer dress cover. The fire blocking materials presently available cannot be dyed. Therefore, they are not used as outer covers. Until recently, urethane foam, the only foam meeting airline requirements, could not be made fire resistant enough without a large, and unacceptable, increase in weight. The effects of this rule have been documented in accident investigations