That makes very sad reading, not unexpected though, but its asks more questions than it answers for me
Its not quite right however,
quote
'From Photographs taken at the airshow of the aircraft, it appears that there was an inflight fire located in the engines. It is possible that this caused the Hydraulic failure'.
This is not what any of the shots Ive seen shows, the fire can be seen coming from the bottom of the No1 jet pipe,nowhere near either engine, a fire in the lower jet pipe bay would burn though all the hyd/fuel lines, control rods and elevator PFCU very quickly (the rods were all changed on the Lightning fleet in the 70's from alloy to stainless, to help prolong their life in the event of fire, which they were plauged with untill the end in 88)
But there also seems to be fuel leaking from the forward ventral area as well, all not good
Fire in the engine bay would and can be fought by the engine bay extingushers, there are none in the jet pipe bays.
I await the full report, as this one confuses me somewhat, as you can all imagine this tragic event has touched the Ligthning world (which is very small, maybe only 40 people world wide) deeply, we all feel it and its pushed many thoughts to the front of all of our minds, we the owners of 'just' ground bound Ligthnings feel very responsible for safety of all those people around the aircraft, including ourselves.
Ive said this before and its a serious line, 'theres Lightnings and then theres other aircraft'
Having seen this report one of our members, Roly Elliot, ex chief tech on Lightnings of 25 years, 18 of which were spent on the Lightning fire integrity programe, sent this to me:
Ref' the interim report. Seems like we're about to re-invent the wheel again. This is 1970 onwards all over again. They're about to wake up to the fact that these aircraft are not quite like other aircraft and nothing substitutes for experience. Having been a "Fire Integrity" specialist (along with Pete) on Lightnings for 18 years I'll be interested to see what they come up with. However it's the ejection seat failure that is the most pressing issue by far.
What I dont understand is at no time did Dave Stock call 'fire 1 or 2' or both, there are warning captions in the cockpit warning of engine and jet pipe fires when the fire wires burn though or are effected by heat, why wasnt he aware of the fire raging at the back end ?
This is also interestig but not unexpected
Quote
After he completing this short show, the pilot taxied the aircraft back into the direction of Apron B. He was still
on the runway when the engines of the aircraft suddenly flamed out. The pilot attempted
to restart the engines but was not successful. The aircraft was then towed back to Apron
B where it remained parked overnight. Back on the apron the Air Force Fire Fighters
noticed an excessive fuel leak and to stop possible damage to the apron, the fire fighters
put drip trays under the aircraft.
Ummmmm,when an engine flames out for what ever reason the fuel (if theres any left), is still being pumped in and will run straight out the back engine and into the jet pipe, the seal between the engine, pipe and reheat pipe are only a hot gas seals, not a fuel seals and there will be fuel everwhere, filling the bays, there are 'over board' fuel leak lines and drip trays to counter any fuel leaking onto hot areas, but this is not good and should be investigated, meaning a pipe pull
We shall see what comes from all this, still very sad though
