arFF
Cargo Fire Challe By Jeff Price
Removing a planeload of passengers from the ARFF incident equation doesn’t make things as easy as you might think, as Philadelphia firefighters learned two years ago.
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he good news about fighting a cargo aircraft fire is that 150 passengers aren’t on board. But there are plenty of hazards that can injure or kill aircraft rescue firefighter (ARFF) crew members if they aren’t careful when responding to a cargo plane emergency. On Feb. 7, 2006, ARFF crews from Philadelphia International Airport, responding to a fire on board a UPS DC-8, learned numerous lessons the hard way. Fortunately, no one was injured seriously, but their actions, both good and bad, provide
Airport MAgAzine | February/March 2008
valuable lessons for what to do and what not to do when responding to a cargo plane crash. It was nearly midnight when the flight crew on UPS Flight 1307 inbound to Philadelphia from Atlanta smelled smoke in the cockpit. The flight engineer went into the cargo area but didn’t see any fumes or fire. Since cargo aircraft are filled wall to wall with shipping containers, he was unable to walk around the cabin to identify the source of the smoke.