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A British air crew tragically lost when a Nimrod spy plane burst into flames were unable to tackle the blaze because it occurred within a sealed compartment with no automatic fire extinguisher. The Nimrod aircraft have been at the centre of controversy for some years now, ever since the tragic accident which took place after a midair refuelling operation over Afghanistan in September 2006. The plane exploded 6 minutes after the fire alarm sounded, having found it impossible to reach the airstrip at Kandahar. The incident led to the biggest loss of life suffered by British forces in a single incident since the Falklands War. There have been repeated calls to have the Nimrod fleet grounded due to safety concerns highlighted by crash investigators. At the inquest into the accident, the coroner described the aircraft as having glaring design errors and that it had not been airworthy for any of the 37 years it had been in service. The fire on board flight XV230 is thought to have been started when a fuel line leaked and came into contact with a hot air system pipe. One of the contributing factors to the explosion that killed all fourteen crew was that there was no fire detection and suppression system in the compartment where the fire broke out which was sealed and therefore inaccessible by the crew. Other factors included the maintenance policy as well as the age of the aircraft's couplings, seals and insulators. Had an automatic fire extinguisher been present it may have averted the tragedy. This type of extinguisher works by detecting changes in temperature and releasing an appropriate fire extinguishing substance if the temperature goes above a certain range. The UK has a fleet of 15 Nimrod surveillance aircraft, some of which have been in service for nearly 40 years. Families of the crew killed in the accident have been campaigning to have the aircraft taken out of service, but the government has up until now insisted that they are safe and airworthy. The government has now announced that the entire fleet will be brought back to the UK in order for urgent safety modifications to be carried out, fuel seals and engine bay ducts are to be replaced, with no aircraft not having received this modification being permitted to fly beyond the end of March 2009. This will see the removal of the entire fleet from overseas operations for several months.
Article Source: http://blogticles.com
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