Fire Safety

[designrs]

THIS --> "-personal EPIRB on your person"

Ever watch that TV show "I should not be alive"?
Almost everyone that almost died on that show could have been saved quickly and spared a lot of pain and suffering if they had a personal EPIRB on them.

Think about putting a plane down somewhere today then it is 12 degrees F out!
How long could you survive in the middle of nowhere?
Think you might want an EPIRB?

Often you'd be lucky to get out fast, with no time to grab anything.
You could possibly be injured as well.

Thinking about one of those survival vests, with lots of survival stuff in the pockets.
The survival vest is a pretty good balance between toolman's extensive list, and Jack's concern for comfort, weight and statistics. Stuff whatever would be most useful and comfortable in the pockets.

[designrs]

Toolman, as you are so concerned about fire, you might want to check out Diamond Aircraft. They have actively advertised that no Diamond has ever caught fire post-impact. They do not make a LSA but they do make a 2-seat aircraft, the DA-20, that is very similar if you don't mind going for your Private Pilot License & medical.

[dstclair]

As horrible as injury or worse by fire is, one needs to put this into perspective. Fire occurs in 13% of general aviation accidents ("Crash Risk in General Aviation") and "more than 2/3 of pilots in crashes with fire died compared with 15% of pilots in other crashes. BUT the cause of death was likely as a direct result of G-force function more so than burns and smoke inhalation." Accidents occur at a rate of 6.78 times per 100,000 flight hours, therefore fires ensue around 1 once per 100,000 flight hours. Oh, and 85% of the accidents are due to pilot error so we could refactor the non-controllable accident rate to about 1 per 100,000 hrs which then reduces fire to 0.1 per 100,000 hrs.

None of the studies I've read recommended flame retardant material or helmets as a way to reduce the fatality rate. Pilot training was and is #1, four-point seatbelts was also way up there.

For us LSA drivers, I would expect our numbers to be a bit more favorable due to more modern designs that take into account these lessons learned and also our much lower stall/landing speed. One of the studies cited correlates landing speed to fatalities.

Then again, safety is a personal decision and extra precautions are never a bad idea.

[toolman]

I can say that with auto accidents I have only witnessed two collision related car fires in 15 years, both cases the occupants had already escaped and the fire was electrical. I accept that the likelihood is low in aircraft accidents though higher than with automobile accidents due to heavy over-engineering of vehicular fuel tanks. Currently training in a C-172 though the 46 gallons of volatile gasoline above my head is on my mind when I am not flying the aircraft. It makes me think of jet fuel burning diesel engines over avgas once I wear out the motors in whatever I end up buying, that was the lesson of the gasoline Sherman tank vs the diesel powered panzers..
Training, attitude, habituating safety, and using paper checklists rather than thinking you know the checklist items by heart will save more lives than buying your way out of trouble with shiny gear. Good harness and well engineered frame and seat mounting make sense too. Mortality for ejected passengers in anything moving 60mph at ground level is pretty high.

[MrMorden]

I have refrained from commenting, until now...I just wanted to watch and see where the conversation went. My credentials in this area are that I spent several years as a Police Officer and worked a lot of accidents, including some fatalities. In the accidents I worked I saw some minor fires, but never a fatality due to fire. As toolman states, ground vehicles are heavily over-engineered; there are usually solid steel safety beams and framing surround the fuel tanks, and a tank crush is just unlikely unless extreme forces (usually in the form of speed) is involved.

As for aircraft, they are very lightly built by comparison be necessity. That does not mean they are particularly prone to catching fire, though some designs are more prone to fuel tank compromise and fire than others. LSA in particular are *very* lightly built to comply with LSA limitations. On the plus side, they fly and especially land slower, so balling one up on the runway involves much less energy to be dissipated by the airframe. Overall I have not seen any data to say that LSA are more prone to post-crash fires than other GA airplanes.

Other than the few designs that seem to have a propensity for fire (some disagree, but it seems to me Cirrus is one such), it is usually the case that post-crash fires occur in accidents that are otherwise marginally- or non-survivable do to high impact angles and/or a lot of impact energy. When a plane is totally destroyed, that usually applies to the fuel system as well. In the few cases where a minor accident results in a fire, everybody either scrambles out and lives or the fire happens so fast that nobody survives.

So what about protective clothing? I think in the rare case of a fire that gets into the cabin, full head-to-toe Nomex would probably help, giving you an extra few seconds to get out. But I think the inconvenience factor is just too high for me for the potential benefits. Here in Georgia, it is often over 100°F in the cockpit in the summer, and wearing a hot Nomex suit would be MISERABLE. Wearing a helmet would be MISERABLE. Just wearing a headset is pretty bad. You have to weigh the reduced joy of flying versus the safety benefits. In the end we fly for the joy, not because it's the safest activity you can find.

That said, you can pick some strategies that can help a little without making you miserable. Wear natural fiber clothing like cotton and wool instead of synthetics. Natural fibers burn, but synthetics like nylon, lycra, and spandex MELT to your skin, causing worse burns. Also make sure you understand and maintain your fuel system. Never take off with even a *tiny* fuel leak. Any amount of leaking fuel should ground the aircraft until repaired. Just use common sense and fly conservatively and I think your chances of getting in a fire are greatly reduced (though already quite small).

[toolman]

MrMorden, 100%, and I get the comfort issue.
In fact much of this thread is me convincing myself to buy and make a habit of wearing the stuff.
I remember wearing a NFPA rated helmet and nomex brushfire gear, it is like wearing trash sacks in the heat.

[MrMorden]

MrMorden, 100%, and I get the comfort issue.
In fact much of this thread is me convincing myself to buy and make a habit of wearing the stuff.
I remember wearing a NFPA rated helmet and nomex brushfire gear, it is like wearing trash sacks in the heat.

That is definitely on of the great things about flying, everybody gets to decide for themselves what kind of flying they will do, what risk tolerance the will accept, and what gear they need to suit their mission and safety objectives (within FAA regs, of course).

[MovingOn]

Delete...

[Jack Tyler]

"Flying includes a certain level of risk that we all feel is acceptable or we wouldn't be flying. Fire is way down on the list IMHO."

I agree. However, there is the *likelihood* of a given incident ('risk') - which was the point of the comment above, fire ranking quite low - and the *consequences* of the incident. That 'consequences' issue is why fire, as an incident, is so hard to dismiss. IMO the three 'first principles' in avoiding death or serious injury due to fire are: 1) a keen eye and diligent maintenance; 2) currency in performing an emergency descent (which is why it was added to the PTS), and 3) an in-cockpit fire extinguisher. For me at least - in the southeastern USA - the notion of fire-retardant clothing is both impractical but w-a-y down the 'what matters' list.

Good point, I thought, about the utility and importance of a 406 EPIRB. And let's not over-engineer this. The idea is to exit the a/c *immediately* with the EPRIB on your person. That doesn't require a vest. Simply having it at hand - ours is inbetween us on a console in the ex-ashtray I made into a receptacle - and throwing it down your shirt before touchdown will get the job done. It's like the bigger topic of ditch bags: when crossing an ocean, our ditch bags were bulky, heavy and had to address a far wider range of issues. In a plane, our little nylon sack can be slipped over one of our heads and weighs but 3#. In the last survival session I attended, taught by a Navy SERE instructor (ask a Navy pilot about getting thru SERE), the instructor showed his own (little nylon bagged) ditch bag: 2# and able to get the job done easily, presuming a PLB is stuffed down one's shirt.