Air Canada 777 Damaged by Ground Vehicle Fire - YUL

[pelmet]

https://samchui.com/2023/07/10/air-cana ... -montreal/

[digits_]

Air Canada confirmed that the vehicle which caught fire was a water truck.

That's impressive.

The cause of the fire is still under investigation, but it is believed that the water truck may have malfunctioned.

Yes, I'd say this would qualify as a 'malfunction'.

[Dry Guy]

Is the hose on the truck so short it has to be parked under the airplane? Seems like an unnecessary risk.

[lownslow]

Is the hose on the truck so short it has to be parked under the airplane? Seems like an unnecessary risk.

To be fair they don’t catch fire very often

[Big Pistons Forever]

The after picture shows the airplane is pretty scorched. Repairs plus loss of use, that’s going to be expensive.

[Donald]

Is the hose on the truck so short it has to be parked under the airplane? Seems like an unnecessary risk.

If the hose was 100' long, and your job was to fill planes all day.....would you park the shortest distance possible or 100' away?

But to answer the question, I don't think the hose is very long, and this sort of "malfunction" is exceedingly rare.

[TG]

They probably didn’t get the memo/email in time from management authorizing them to push it from underneath with a tug.


Before it creates any damages

[I WAS Pez]

They probably didn’t get the memo/email in time from management authorizing them to push it from underneath with a tug.


Before it creates any damages

That was sort of my thought. I mean, obviously the "right" decision for the ground folks was to wait for ARFF, make sure everyone clear, etc, it's not the line guys job to get in way of the fire. But FFS, with all those tugs and tractors there, someone could have pushed the thing out of the way quite easily and with minimal risk before it caused what I'm guessing is at least multimillion dollar damage and an aircraft offline during peak travel season for months... Ehh well, not their jobs and can't fault them for it, I guess. Still.....

[digits_]

They probably didn’t get the memo/email in time from management authorizing them to push it from underneath with a tug.


Before it creates any damages

That was sort of my thought. I mean, obviously the "right" decision for the ground folks was to wait for ARFF, make sure everyone clear, etc, it's not the line guys job to get in way of the fire. But FFS, with all those tugs and tractors there, someone could have pushed the thing out of the way quite easily and with minimal risk before it caused what I'm guessing is at least multimillion dollar damage and an aircraft offline during peak travel season for months... Ehh well, not their jobs and can't fault them for it, I guess. Still.....

Are all those different ground tugs and equipment owned/operated by AC? If that's the case it would make sense.

But if it's a case of a bunch of lowest-bidding subcontractors, then it would make sense that employees from A are not going to sacrifice a truck from company A in order to push away a burning truck from company B to save a plane owned by C and operated by D.

[Tbayer2021]

They probably didn’t get the memo/email in time from management authorizing them to push it from underneath with a tug.


Before it creates any damages

That was sort of my thought. I mean, obviously the "right" decision for the ground folks was to wait for ARFF, make sure everyone clear, etc, it's not the line guys job to get in way of the fire. But FFS, with all those tugs and tractors there, someone could have pushed the thing out of the way quite easily and with minimal risk before it caused what I'm guessing is at least multimillion dollar damage and an aircraft offline during peak travel season for months... Ehh well, not their jobs and can't fault them for it, I guess. Still.....

You honestly think individuals making minimum wage, or close to it, care about any of that? Furthermore, what makes you think there is "minimal risk" here? You have no idea what could happen in a situation like this. Could there be an explosion? Has that part of the aircraft been compromised enough that it could collapse? What would happen if you end up causing more damage to other equipment? Most importantly, regardless of how much they're paid and what they're position is, I wonder what the implications would be when it comes to workers comp, LTD/STD. If someone gets injured unnecessarily trying to be the hero and definitely outside of their job description.

[Inverted2]

Good thing it wasn’t an EV. Wait till there’s battery fires around airplanes. A truck full of lithium ion batteries would have burned that plane to the ground since pouring water on them does nothing.

[pelmet]

.

[TalkingPie]

The airline doesn't even care enough about these workers to train and staff them properly so that they don't get injured or burn out, to provide them with a living wage that keeps pace with inflation, or give them any sort of job stability when the industry takes a downturn, and there are people out there who think that these people should charge into a fire in order to minimize financial damage to the airline?

Are you guys for real?

[pelmet]

You honestly think individuals making minimum wage, or close to it, care about any of that? Furthermore, what makes you think there is "minimal risk" here? You have no idea what could happen in a situation like this. Could there be an explosion? Has that part of the aircraft been compromised enough that it could collapse? What would happen if you end up causing more damage to other equipment? Most importantly, regardless of how much they're paid and what they're position is, I wonder what the implications would be when it comes to workers comp, LTD/STD. If someone gets injured unnecessarily trying to be the hero and definitely outside of their job description.

I have to laugh at all the AvCanada posters commenting on why some lower wage workers are not going to care so much as to risk injury by pushing the vehicle on fire out of the way because of their lower wages……..as if all the highly paid AC captains at the airport are pushing people out of the way to do it themselves.

[rookiepilot]

They probably didn’t get the memo/email in time from management authorizing them to push it from underneath with a tug.


Before it creates any damages

That was sort of my thought. I mean, obviously the "right" decision for the ground folks was to wait for ARFF, make sure everyone clear, etc, it's not the line guys job to get in way of the fire. But FFS, with all those tugs and tractors there, someone could have pushed the thing out of the way quite easily and with minimal risk before it caused what I'm guessing is at least multimillion dollar damage and an aircraft offline during peak travel season for months... Ehh well, not their jobs and can't fault them for it, I guess. Still.....

You First.

[TG]

They probably didn’t get the memo/email in time from management authorizing them to push it from underneath with a tug.


Before it creates any damages

That was sort of my thought. I mean, obviously the "right" decision for the ground folks was to wait for ARFF, make sure everyone clear, etc, it's not the line guys job to get in way of the fire. But FFS, with all those tugs and tractors there, someone could have pushed the thing out of the way quite easily and with minimal risk before it caused what I'm guessing is at least multimillion dollar damage and an aircraft offline during peak travel season for months... Ehh well, not their jobs and can't fault them for it, I guess. Still.....

You First.

I would.

But then it's easy for me to quarterback this story from a comfy chair.
I wasn't there, they were and I'm pretty confident they though about it but didn't for X, Y, Z reasons.

Or Y, U, L reasons.

[digits_]

You honestly think individuals making minimum wage, or close to it, care about any of that? Furthermore, what makes you think there is "minimal risk" here? You have no idea what could happen in a situation like this. Could there be an explosion? Has that part of the aircraft been compromised enough that it could collapse? What would happen if you end up causing more damage to other equipment? Most importantly, regardless of how much they're paid and what they're position is, I wonder what the implications would be when it comes to workers comp, LTD/STD. If someone gets injured unnecessarily trying to be the hero and definitely outside of their job description.

I have to laugh at all the AvCanada posters commenting on why some lower wage workers are not going to care so much as to risk injury by pushing the vehicle on fire out of the way because of their lower wages……..as if all the highly paid AC captains at the airport are pushing people out of the way to do it themselves.

Only if they hadn't taken away the B1 travel benefits!

[rookiepilot]

……..as if all the highly paid AC captains at the airport are pushing people out of the way to do it themselves.

And get their pretty uniforms smudged?

Not likely.

[DanWEC]

That's a fire from the engine, likely a gas line. It probably went from zero to spewing everywhere in 5 seconds. Getting the fuxx out would be the only concern for my 16 bucks an hour. Zero judgement here. Nobody got hurt.

Too bad you guys weren't around to pull the truck away, shirtless, by hand. Chestnut hair blowing in the wind, clenched jaw gripping the Marlboro, dick all veiny and throbbing. Could have saved AC some paint. If only you hadn't been typing on AvCanada instead...

Just a heads up that when you push a vehicle that's burning along with gasoline on the ground, your truck is going to end up on top of said burning gasoline! Oh darn potatoes. Oopsies.

[flyer 1492]

Way back when, my boss came up to me with a list of airplanes he wanted in the hanger if it caught fire.

[digits_]

Do airside ground vehicles have to conform to some sort of safety standards at major international airports?

[Tbayer2021]

Do airside ground vehicles have to conform to some sort of safety standards at major international airports?

I worked the ramp at Pearson during flight school and plenty of the GSE was in extremely rough shape. If there is or was a standard, it must not have been enforced or was very laxed.

[Eric Janson]

Good thing it wasn’t an EV. Wait till there’s battery fires around airplanes. A truck full of lithium ion batteries would have burned that plane to the ground since pouring water on them does nothing.

Water is how you fight a Lithium battery fire - FAA training video is online.

Lithium batteries need to be cooled to stop the reaction.

I thought Pilots had been trained on how to deal with Lithium battery fires - I had it on my recurrent training.

[daedalusx]

Good thing it wasn’t an EV. Wait till there’s battery fires around airplanes. A truck full of lithium ion batteries would have burned that plane to the ground since pouring water on them does nothing.

Water is how you fight a Lithium battery fire - FAA training video is online.

Lithium batteries need to be cooled to stop the reaction.

I thought Pilots had been trained on how to deal with Lithium battery fires - I had it on my recurrent training.

Throwing water or orange juice on your phone/EFB that has thermal battery runaway is infinitely easier than what happens when an EV car catches fire. Have you seen how much is required to extinguish a Tesla ?
24,000+ gals of water ... although an exaggeration, you might as well say it does nothing.
https://www.ctif.org/news/150-000-liter ... ectric-car

[pelmet]

Good thing it wasn’t an EV. Wait till there’s battery fires around airplanes. A truck full of lithium ion batteries would have burned that plane to the ground since pouring water on them does nothing.

Water is how you fight a Lithium battery fire - FAA training video is online.

Lithium batteries need to be cooled to stop the reaction.

I thought Pilots had been trained on how to deal with Lithium battery fires - I had it on my recurrent training.

Throwing water or orange juice on your phone/EFB that has thermal battery runaway is infinitely easier than what happens when an EV car catches fire. Have you seen how much is required to extinguish a Tesla ?
24,000+ gals of water ... although an exaggeration, you might as well say it does nothing.
https://www.ctif.org/news/150-000-liter ... ectric-car

I seems to me that water works well when the entire battery is under water but not so well when water is being poured onto it but oxygen is also still available. Maybe similar to trying to drown somebody with a thousand litres of water from a fire hose versus holding them under a thousand litres of water.