Flight Crews Share Critical Guidance for Fighting Inflight Fires

It’s widely understood throughout the aviation industry that, although rare, an inflight fire can result in some of the worst possible airborne emergencies imaginable. Onboard fires, especially those that aren’t readily accessible, can easily threaten the loss of an airplane and the souls on board.

Whether flames ignite on the flight deck, the galley, from an overheating laptop in the cabin or in the baggage compartment, crew members may have as little as 15 to 20 minutes to get an aircraft on the ground if a hidden fire is allowed to progress without intervention, according to the FAA. Fires that spread to an “aircraft’s overhead area may become uncontrollable in as few as 8-10 minutes,” according to fire tests cited by the agency.

Of course, recurrent training for pilot and flight attendants should include preparation for these kinds of scenarios. For operators of medium-to-large business aircraft, having a trained flight attendant on board is ideal for protecting against fires in the passenger cabin.

Flight Crews Should Consider Training Together

During a recent meeting of the NBAA Safety Committee, Gulfstream G650 pilot and committee member Craig Bowers recommended business aircraft operators conduct an all-hands “pressure test” for inflight fires.

Bowers pointed out the long-term safety benefits of bringing pilots and cabin crew together at their homebase hangar to run a few possible scenarios inside an aircraft. Because the crew would be fighting a fire as a team, it only makes sense for them to train as a team in an environment where mistakes cost nothing.

“You’ve got a flight attendant in the back who could play a critical role during an incident,” Bowers said. “If you couldn’t get a pilot back there, a trained flight attendant would be the crew member fighting this problem. And yet, you didn’t all go through Flight Safety, FACTS or CAE training together.”

Some Key Steps for Inflight Fire Response

The basics of fighting an airborne fire are contained in FAA Advisory Circular 120-80B – a must-read for pilots and cabin crews. A few of the basics include:

• As the flight crew puts on oxygen masks, they should verify the regulator is set to 100%. In fact, crew training should include ensuring the oxygen mask is set to 100% before starting engines.
• If the aircraft is equipped, put on smoke goggles and hoods. The flight attendant must also put on their smoke hood and ensure passengers do the same. Any delay in these first two steps may result in crew member incapacitation.
• Smoke and fume elimination is designed to remove the pollutants from the cabin and increase airflow for passengers to breathe. However, increasing airflow may increase the intensity of a cabin fire. So, it’s critical that the fire be extinguished first.
• As the crew plans for immediate descent and landing at the nearest suitable airport, pilots should notify flight attendants to prepare passengers for emergency landing and evacuation.
• For smoke in the cabin, FAA Advisory Circular 120-80B calls on cabin crew to “aggressively locate the source of the fire; select the appropriate extinguishing agent; relocate passengers as necessary; consider the location of portable oxygen bottles and consider relocating portable oxygen bottles away from the source of the fire.”

Prep for Lithium-Ion Battery Fires

Under certain circumstances, smartphones, tablets and laptop computers powered by lithium-ion batteries can be a possible fire hazard aboard an aircraft. In a worst-case scenario, devices can overheat and emit smoke, possibly bursting into flame or exploding, spewing bits of white-hot gel in all directions. In fact, in 2023, a lithium-ion battery incident occurred more than once a week on average aboard aircraft in the U.S., according to the FAA.

The best first step to coping with a runaway lithium-ion battery fire is to cool the overheating device by pouring copious amounts of water on it. But that’s only the beginning. Julie Kozma, chair of the NBAA Flight Attendants Committee, warned that during a battery overheat, “We have to get within arm’s length of an unstable electronic device in thermal runaway, many times with little or no protection. That’s not acceptable to us.”

Airplanes should be equipped with proper containment bags and fire-proof gloves to pick up the device and move it away from passengers. Just in case, aircraft equipment should include a container large enough to submerge an overheating device until after landing.

Beware of These Potential Galley Fire Risks

Susan Friedenberg provides flight attendants with many practical tips and solutions during her training classes. Friedenberg, with decades of experience as a business aircraft flight attendant, is the president and CEO of Corporate Flight Attendant Training & Global Consulting, based in Philadelphia. Even a simple task, like reheating the catering, can lead to a fire during flight, she said.

“A galley fire can start at either the oven or the microwave,” said Friedenberg. “Catering is typically delivered in a tin with a cardboard top. One side is entirely silver, resembling the oven tin, while the other has paper. If you place the paper-covered tin on the top rack of the oven, it could catch fire.”

Another hazard stems from something completely innocuous. “Many caterers stick a label with cooking directions on the top of the tray,” Friedenberg said. “If you put the meal in the oven with that sticker facing up, that can catch fire, too.” Some flight attendants will also flip the lid over before cooking, she said. That puts the cover that once was next to the food on top. “If that has grease on it, you can end up with a grease fire.”

Her solution: Flight attendants should make sure when ordering from the caterer, to ask for two lids, paper to paper – foil side up – without “stickies with directions. If you need them, ask the caterer to paste the directions on the side,” Friedenberg said.

Keep an eye on the microwave oven. “One of my passengers brought some popcorn bags on board,” said Friedenberg. “While I was involved elsewhere, he put one in the galley’s small microwave. The bag expanded inside the microwave as it popped, hitting the top element in the oven, and caught fire. I bought mini-popcorn bags for everyone after that.”

What if There’s no Flight Attendant?

If a cabin fire breaks out on an aircraft with no flight attendant, passengers are left to announce the problem to the pilots and try to deal with it, initially. In a two-pilot aircraft, one pilot may need to leave the flight deck, with the other continuing to fly the aircraft.

Passengers should be briefed before takeoff about the hazards of cooking without a trained flight attendant and directed to the location of the onboard Halon fire extinguishers. “There’s usually a bottle in the closet behind the pilots and another behind the first aft-facing seat in the cabin,” Friedenberg said. With no flight attendant onboard, a pilot should show passengers the location and operation of these fire extinguishers before takeoff.

Know the Headset and Smoke Relief Valve

Because a flight attendant is often the first line of defense during a fire, coordination with the flight deck can become very important, as can some of the mechanics of aircraft operation. For instance, flight attendants are trained to plug in a headset to coordinate with pilots on the flight deck. Therefore, it’s critical that flight attendants know the exact location of the headset.

Friedenberg pointed out that it’s important to know there’s a smoke relief valve in the back of the cabin. “It’s usually located over the door between the lavatory and the baggage compartment and it opens a seal on the actual baggage door and can draw out the smoke,” she said. “There may be a slight pressure bump, but the pilots can raise the cabin pressure, so the smoke heads through the outflow valve.”

With so many different inflight fire scenarios, Bowers’ suggestion for flight crews to train together makes sense. In addition, Bowers recommended conducting a debrief after these training sessions to share lessons learned. “I’d be surprised if nine and a half of every 10 flight departments that try this training don’t learn something valuable.”

Review NBAA resources on inflight safety at nbaa.org/inflight-safety.