Anyone remember Swiss Air 111, in 1998? I was flying as a MD 11 First Officer at the time so it's burned into my memory. Every time we went to our annual recurrent training afterwards, we had to practice our emergency descents, fire checklists, ditching checklists, etc. These poor guys wasted 15 minutes running a smoke elimination checklist, when in about 5 minutes they could have had it on the ground in Halifax. It was as a result of this crash that our checklists and procedures all changed to; "GET IT ON THE GROUND, NOW!"
The problem with the Malaysian flight was, they didn't have a nearby airport, if it was a **** fire, but it seems they did turn back and descend, before being overcome. Then it just flew on autopilot until the fuel ran out...? Maybe.
Here's a quick refresher on Swiss Air 111:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swissair_Flight_111 Read the whole thing if you have time, but if you don't, here's from the "Findings" near the bottom:
TSB findings
The investigation identified eleven causes and contributing factors of the crash in its final report. The first and most important was:
Aircraft certification standards for material flammability were inadequate in that they allowed the use of materials that could be ignited and sustain or propagate fire. Consequently, flammable material propagated a fire that started above the ceiling on the right side of the **** near the **** rear wall. The fire spread and intensified rapidly to the extent that it degraded aircraft systems and the **** environment, and ultimately led to the loss of control of the aircraft.[1]
Investigators identified evidence of arcing in wiring of the in-flight entertainment system network, but this did not trip the circuit breakers. The investigation was unable to confirm if this arc was the "lead event" that ignited the flammable covering on MPET insulation blankets that quickly spread across other flammable materials.[1] The crew did not recognize that a fire had started and were not warned by instruments. Once they became aware of the fire, the uncertainty of the problem made it difficult to address. The rapid spread of the fire led to the failure of key display systems, and the crew were soon rendered unable to control the aircraft. Because he had no light by which to see his controls after the displays failed, the pilot was forced to steer the plane blindly; intentionally or not, the plane swerved off course and headed back out into the Atlantic. Recovered fragments of the plane show that the heat inside the **** became so great that the ceiling started to melt. The recovered standby attitude indicator and airspeed indicators showed that the aircraft struck the water at 300 knots (560 km/h, 348 mph) in a 20 degrees nose down and 110 degree bank attitude, or almost inverted.[43] Death was instantaneous for all passengers and crew due to the impact forces and deceleration.[18]
The TSB concluded that even if the crew had been aware of the nature of the problem immediately after detection of the initial odour, and had a commenced an approach as rapidly as possible, the developing fire related conditions in the **** would have made a safe landing at Halifax impossible.[44][45]
