Replies

The Air Canada fire was on a DC9 as well. That happened at cruise altitude when a lavatory flush motor burned up. The crew tried to isolate the short in a complex series of steps from their check list. They continued at cruise altitude for a number of minutes before they decided to descend and land. At that time they declared and emergency and descended to land at Cincinnati. After they landed, the aircraft was engulfed in flames and even the airport fire fighters were unable to save a number of passengers that did not get out in time.

The investigation found the crew partially to blame because they treated the fire as a troubleshooting exercise, instead of immediate action. For 30 years, airline pilots have been trained differently when it comes to cabin and flight deck fires. As the article correctly states, the priority is maintain control of the aircraft and immediately turn toward a safe field, then fight the fire, and last to communicate. Ideally, we train our crews that the pilot flying can also coordinate diversion with ATC, but that assumes a normal means of communication. Wearing a mask is a big issue.

In this case, since the transponder may have been off because an electrical bus was off line because of an avionics fire/smoke, it is likely that the number 1 radio is on the same bus (in the A320 series that I fly, #1 VHF and #1 transponder are on the same bus).