Hawker on Fire in Sandy Lake

[SmokinJoe]

From CBC:

The cause of a fire that destroyed an aircraft at Sandy Lake yesterday afternoon is still unknown.

No one was hurt when a Wasaya Airways Hawker-Siddley 748 caught fire on the ground and sent thick plumes of black smoke billowing into the sky.

The two-person crew had flown the plane from Pickle Lake with a cargo of fuel, transported in bladders. There were no passengers on the aircraft.

A news release from Wasaya's Thunder Bay office says the incident occurred "during ground operations" at the Sandy Lake airport.

The Transportation Safety Board won't send a team to the scene because it considers the incident an industrial accident.

Wasaya Airways provides passenger service to more than 25 destinations across northwestern Ontario, as well as chartered passenger and cargo service.

[beluga]

Video: http://sandylake.firstnation.ca/system/ ... I_1151.AVI

Images: http://sandylake.firstnation.ca/press-r ... plane-fire

[Doc]

From CBC:


The two-person crew had flown the plane from Pickle Lake with a cargo of fuel, transported in bladders. There were no passengers on the aircraft.

"Bladders".....I don't think so. Haven't seen fuel in a "bladder" since the '70's or maybe the '80's. Where DO they get this?

[Redneck_pilot86]

There are bladders out there Doc, just not at Wasaya.

[Rudy]

What a sad end to an aircraft that is a modern legend. As someone who flies bulk fuel for a living this is my worst nightmare. I too had a seal let go while pumping but luckily there was no fire. After that we made extensive modifications to our pumps (also Honda). They changed seal materials, further shielded the muffler, switched to an expensive aircraft style shielded ignition, and set up a ingenious emergency kill switch like you would find on a jet ski. The kill switch can be activated from a safe distance by a long rope. I'm curious to see what other ideas you might have to prevent something like this from happening. Switching away from Honda to a purpose built fuel pump sounds good in theory but it needs to be able start at -40 temperatures or else you might as well stay home. I'm sorry but disassembling the aircraft's fuel system to offload thousands of liters seems a bit out to lunch. I can't imagine doing this 4-5 times a day. Any other ideas?

[F100SWB]

The purpose built pumps are available with Honda engines, which completely nulifies any basis for the reliability argument. A Honda will start no matter what it is bolted to.

[cratedriver]

Before it was put out...

Not after?

Being an asshole is cheap and easy. It's also chicken-shit.

[Siddley Hawker]

Austin always used "flame proof" pumps - while the fuel was in rubber bags in the back and they did blow one up in Moose's Knee - that was due to fuel weeping out of the bags after sitting pre-loaded over night and the old style inverters - inverters on = explosion -- uncle Gerry made it out the DV window - lol - Austin's installed fume detectors after that and changed the loading policy - seems they were far more pro-active than the present carrier.

Not long after that event we wet leased one of Austin's 748's when our F-27 suffered a nose gear collapse. As Gerry told it "I exited the aircraft in the prescribed manner, via the DV window and the rope." Here he nodded toward the Captain and continued "Fat ass here got stuck in the DV window and when she blew it blew him half-way across the ramp with the DV window frame around his neck."

[upanickel]

Anybody know what kind of pumps the Wilderness North and Calm Air guys are using?

[trey kule]

Anybody know what kind of pumps the Wilderness North and Calm Air guys are using?

Last week.....or today?
Sometimes the ''we have always done it this way" crowd gets a bit of egg on their face, and the company decides the price of a proper pump is less than the insurance deductable....
To bad the lesson has to be learned with incidents like this.

[beluga]

Anybody know what kind of pumps the Wilderness North and Calm Air guys are using?

There's a gorman rupp pump on the Calm Air ATR installation.

[trey kule]

I think the ambulance chasing is just about done, so time to drift the thread a bit...

I questioned the safety of that many times during my time there, especially since I have a background in the petroleum industry. My concern was always met with"we consider it an acceptable risk."

When you say you questioned the safety, did you do it through the company SMS program, writing up the risk?
If you did, then I would expect that Mr. "acceptable risk" will be polishing off his resume.

If you did not, then why not? Unfortunately pilots are the biggest bunch of whiners I have ever met, and , all to often, they simply dont know what they are talking about, so it becomes a bit of a habit to tune them out, or give off the cuff responses.

While I am not a fan of the TC mandated SMS in small companies (for reasons that it does not achieve the objective), in larger companies the response to any such safety concern should have been to "write it up"...That way it does not get ignored or the issue blown off. It also, I have found, makes pilots think a bit more about their perception, though , in this case,it seems the risk was really there and the company chose to ignore it... Their insurers just might have something to say about that if the risk was documented in their SMS.

If not, then hindsight is 20/20

[Liquid Charlie]

There are certainly better ways and certainly safer ways to do it - if the pilots think it's unsafe -- wtf -- man-up and write it up and get it documented under SMS and then if nothing changes get ALPA involved -- put your 1.9% dues to work for u -- get on your safety officer,s off his ass and hold the MEC chair's feet to the fire -- u guys are luckier than most -- u have the mechanism to change it -- end rant -----

As you can see I'm with Trey on this one ----

As a foot note TC has shut down all bulk fuel operations -- always the same - takes one careless operator to muddy the waters for all - even after all risk assessments and analysis were done for sms in the first place

[F100SWB]

I am not a pilot.
Yes, there were reports in the sms system regarding the safety of the pumps they were using, and they did do an actual risk assessment, I wasn't just told that it was an acceptable risk, that decision was arrived at by a committee.
Myself and a few of the now former base managers questioned the intelligence of this decision many times, obviously with the decision that was made, none of the persons on that committee had any sort of qualifications or background in the petroleum handling industry other than this is what we do, it seems to work.

[trey kule]

Wow.....I expect they are going to have some challanges with TC, OSH, and their insurers then,particualrily if the risk assessment was not done by anyone remotely qualified...."we have always done it this way" without a problem sometimes means we have just been lucky so far, and occassionally luck runs out.

[MUSKEG]

Compliance and/or interpretation of CAR's and I will now add SMS, is directly related to the amount of revenue generated by said flight. As long as we have "old" ownership we will have "old" rules and procedures. There is nothing wrong with being creative and making it work but the system has to evolve as technology advances. Still many ops out there where gas powered pumps are used to refuel. No need of that anymore. 24 v pumps with explosion proof motors should be the only method allowed for A/C refueling in the field. We have the technology, use it.

['CauseTheCaravanCan]

I used to worry all the time about my ex, doing the fuel hauls in an AirTractor, with a combustion engine.
They do most of the job completely alone, especially when up north.
He said it took about 15 mins. to transfer the fuel from the hopper
So I asked him, "hey, on the days it's -40 and blowing, where do you guys stand? He said
"I just get back in the plane and wait"
Yah, I worried lots about that.
I TOLD YOU SO!!!

[whiteguy]

The pumps they use are a standard 2 inch water pump. I fixed many of them. The difference between a water pump and an explosion proof one are bronze internals, a shield on the muffler to prevent it getting sprayed with fuel and a sealed aircraft style ignition system. They are slower and aren't Honda reliable but they exist for a reason.

This exact same thing happened to the first 801 in 1991, C-FKTL it burnt down in Big Trout. The seal between the outlet neck and the main body failed and a stream of fuel hit the muffler. This was first hand info from the PIC who in the recent past spent some time in the wringer that is wasaya base management...

KTL was 802, LTC has always been 801. KTL was an unpressurized big door model. It didn't exactly burn down, it had damage to the area around the back door and some of the skin. It was ferried back to YPL a couple days after the incident.

[The Mole]

Glad everyone is OK, from the initial incident. Spending a night in Sandy Lake, now that could be real traumatic..

Seems only in Ontario do they fly fuel around in the summer. Most other places it would come in on a winter road. Flying would be an absolute last resort. Only a government could afford that

[F100SWB]

The winter road season was very short this year and what roads they did get in were very poor. Normally all that is flown in the summer is top ups for Hydro and gas for the locals. This particular load was for one of the companies own remote jet tanks.

As for 802 that's an oops on my part for not digging a little deeper and double checking the info as to the numbering. It did survive but it was the same accident with the same cause.

[Liquid Charlie]

Flying would be an absolute last resort. Only a government could afford that

- not necessarily -- still lots of bulk fuel hauled north of 60 by exploration companies and there is also a yearly resupply of YUW for North Warning which is usually about quarter mil L give or take -- this incident has become a pain in the ass for several carriers let alone the potential of running out of fuel --

[Brown Bear]

I am not a pilot.
Yes, there were reports in the sms system regarding the safety of the pumps they were using, and they did do an actual risk assessment, I wasn't just told that it was an acceptable risk, that decision was arrived at by a committee.
Myself and a few of the now former base managers questioned the intelligence of this decision many times,

If there were reports in the "sms" system (which I'm pretty sure was not in existence till recently) in writing, they should still be in the system. Might be worth looking into it.

[F100SWB]

Like I said, I am a former employee. The timeframe of when I had a rather interesting discussion with one of the members of the committee that did the assessment was around September of 2010. When I asked the question the sentiment of the response was we had to do an assessment because of those damn pilots.
The main details in the reasoning for categorizing it as an acceptable risk was the reliability of the Hondas as well as the lack of incidents at that time. Anyone worth the paper their licence is printed on in the petroleum industry knows that not certified = illegal and no insurance company will ever touch it.
I had concerns about my personal liability for allowing said operation due to certain liscences that I carry. Thankfully due to my having voiced my concerns and their being their own fuel supplier they assume all risk themselves.

[Doc]

Like I said, I am a former employee. The timeframe of when I had a rather interesting discussion with one of the members of the committee that did the assessment was around September of 2010. When I asked the question the sentiment of the response was we had to do an assessment because of those damn pilots.

Our paths have probably crossed. Pilots were (still are?) regarded as, at best, a necessary evil, and most of the time as uneducated, brainless know it all, spoilt brats. I'm not "dumping" on them here, it's a fact.
I was told the Honda pumps had been "modified" to pump flammable liquids. The "modification"? The warning labels regarding flammable liquids had been removed. Seriously.

Mind you, this was pre 9/11. YMMV.

[ZARCON]

The pumps they use are a standard 2 inch water pump. I fixed many of them. The difference between a water pump and an explosion proof one are bronze internals, a shield on the muffler to prevent it getting sprayed with fuel and a sealed aircraft style ignition system. They are slower and aren't Honda reliable but they exist for a reason.

This exact same thing happened to the first 801 in 1991, C-FKTL it burnt down in Big Trout. The seal between the outlet neck and the main body failed and a stream of fuel hit the muffler. This was first hand info from the PIC who in the recent past spent some time in the wringer that is wasaya base management...

KTL was 802, LTC has always been 801. KTL was an unpressurized big door model. It didn't exactly burn down, it had damage to the area around the back door and some of the skin. It was ferried back to YPL a couple days after the incident.

The first incident was 801 FKTL( serial number 1613, small door), this aircraft was flown out of Big Trout and now sits to this day in Bar River as it was deemed a write off. The registration was used again on serial number 1778,FKTL 802(big door), when Kelner bought two 748's from the middle east. Kelner bought Canadian registered GLTC right after the fire and numbered it 801. It was shortly after converted to the tanker. In the late 90's Wasaya sold FKTL(802) to a freight company in Sweden.