We should tell the fueler to stop fueling right?

[ExpressJet Roger]

Scheduled for an over night in Nashville, I found myself wondering if I should go out and see what the city has to offer or stay in and watch the same old stupid TV shows. See I’m not what you would call a fan of the country music and Nashville is the home of this twanging sound that sends a chill up my spine. After debating with myself, my stomach won over. I figured I would go out and grab something to eat and if there turned out to be something to do I would stay. As it turned out, I decided to stay out and glad I did because Nashville has a nice down town scene; great food, good music (if you like your music with a little twang to it), and wonderful people. The next day (since we had a late afternoon show), I decided to go back out and get some more of that great bar-b-q. Later on in the day I will be so happy I went out and grabbed food. Since what was suppose to be a short two leg day done by 5pm ended up coming to an end around 11pm at a hotel with absolutely no place to eat anywhere near it.

Getting to the gate, we found to our surprise, the aircraft had already arrived. This is surprising since there are a few locations where the aircraft comes from a hub that is notorious for being late, for Expressjet, that hub is Newark. For us this had even a greater impact, since we were going through Newark before heading to our overnight, we figured that not only would we be able to get in but out without any delay. We also figured that we would be able to cut this time down even more by leaving ten minutes early (after all we are Expressjet, the push 10 minutes early airline). Shortly after starting our preflight checks, a mechanic comes aboard and asks if he can check the APU. This aircraft was scheduled to come right back to Nashville the very same night and Nashville is one of ExpressJet’s maintenance location. The mechanic was told by his supervisor that the APU failed because it got de-icing fluid in it during the morning ice removal in Cleveland, and he was suppose to go out and do a test on it so that they can get a head start on the night’s repairs. They will later find out that it was actually a bad turbine, which if the mechanic had known this he would have preformed a much different check.

Let me back up just a moment and explain what an APU is and what condition we got the plane. APU is the three letter initials for the auxiliary power unit. The APU on the ERJ-145 does many things. First, it supplies electrical power to the aircraft (it acts just like the generators you buy at a hardware store only a lot more power). It also provides air to both start the engines (it blows air over the turbines causing the engines to spin to the point were fuel can be introduced and ignited), and providing hot and cold air to the passengers (it blows air into a device that compresses and decompresses the air until it reaches a selected temperature then the air is channeled to the passengers). Jet aircraft don’t need an APU, it just makes life a lot easier. Without the APU, the aircraft must remain hooked up to the ground provided power until the engines are started. Of course the engines have to be started by a device they call the huffer. The huffer is a big hug blower that blows air into the engine doing the exact same thing as the APU. Plus, the aircraft has to be hooked up to a ground cart. The ground cart is an external air-conditioning / heating unit. Of course, the ground cart usually blows hot air into the plane during the summer and cold air during the winter. Seeing that all three of the items were hooked up when I did my walk around, plus the captain telling me that the company has provided the proper paper work to make our flight legal. The one other thing that not having an APU meant for me was that we had to perform special procedures for starting the engines. These are not difficult procedures, but I thought that I would re-read the procedures just to make sure I get the set up correct.

So when the mechanic initially entered the aircraft, I was reviewing the procedures for starting the engines and having the aircraft configured, so I really didn’t pay attention to what was going on. I do remember the captain going “hummm, it is only spinning up to eighteen percent. That’s not right.” It was at this point that I looked at the APU rpm and thought to myself, yea that doesn’t look good. The mechanic told us he was going to be right back and left the plane for about two minutes. When he came back into the aircraft, and made the one statement that will cause any pilot to stop what he is doing. “Hay we have an APU fire.” It was at this point that the captain and I looked at the APU temperature gage; it was indicating around 600 degrees and climbing. Because I had the quick reference book already open reading over the special procedures for starting the engines with out an APU, I quickly flipped to the page that give the procedures for dealing with an APU fire. Quickly running through the procedure, we all watched the APU temperature drop down to about 300 degrees then slowly start to rise again. Again the mechanic said he would be right back and left the aircraft. The captain turns to the flight attendant, who was getting the aircraft ready for the flight, and tells her to stop what she is doing and get ready to run. Maybe a little too dramatic for me but was just the right thing said at the right time that made me want to laugh. It was at this point that the mechanic returned and stated that the APU was still on fire. The captain told the mechanic to tell the gate agent to not let anyone down then turned to me and told me to contact the airport ground controller and request the fire department.

When he got back into the cockpit and started going through the shut down procedures, I noticed that the aircraft was still being fueled. I turned to the captain and said “We should tell the fueler to stop fueling right?” The only thing that made me think about the fueler was the fact that the aircraft right next to ours was boarding passenger. Because the airline that was parked next to us didn’t have a traditional gate, the passengers were walking from the terminal across the tarmac and onto the aircraft. As they did this, they walked relatively close to the fuel truck. The captain got up and opened the door on that side of the aircraft (this is the door we use to cater the aircraft). I heard him whisper to the fueler as he leaned out of the aircraft “hay we have a fire, disconnect and leave.” Like a deer caught in the headlights of an on coming truck, the fueler didn’t move and just starred at the captain. Unfortunately the captain’s plan of keeping the fact that we were on fire a secret from the passengers on the tarmac so that they wouldn’t act like chickens with their heads cut off, failed miserably. The only thing that worked for the captain was to yell at the guy to disconnect and leave now. Of course he used language that I will not repeat here. After the fueler was disconnected and the fire department was notified, the captain and I started running through the emergency shut down procedures again. When this was done, we grabbed the flight attendant and left the aircraft. If we knew then what we know now, I personally would have grabbed all my stuff and took it off the aircraft.

As we got off the aircraft and walked down the stairs to the tarmac, the fire department drove up. Parking behind the aircraft, they started milling around. “Don’t they see where the fire is coming from,” I stated to no one in particular. It was about then that one of the firemen walked up to me and asked, “Where is the fire?” “Where the smoke and fire are shooting out of the aircraft, right back there,” I stated and I pointed to the back of the plane where the APU is located. When the fireman ran back to the truck he told several of the guys were the fire was located and they dragged out a fire hose and was getting ready to climb the ladder that the mechanic left standing when all of a sudden the main big hose on the front of the truck shot off a huge dose of foam. Even though the truck was right behind the aircraft and only about twenty feet back, the only thing that got hit was the six guys standing in front of the fire truck getting ready to carry the small hose up the ladder and down into the back of the APU exhaust. Funniest thing I ever saw, really wish I had a picture of this. Six guys walking around with enough foam on them that you couldn’t even see the color of the clothes they were wearing.

It was during the second shot that I happen to remember that I had a camera. After taking a few pictures, I realized that people rarely remember to look around them to grab the whole picture of the event. As I looked around, I suddenly had to laugh. Remember I told you about those passengers that were boarding that aircraft next to us. Well they all stopped boarding and were just watching our aircraft getting sprayed by the fire department. On the other side, is one of our airplanes. I am standing in front of this aircraft and suddenly realized that the crew was watching the fire then looking at me then back to the fire and I could just picture the passengers on our companies aircraft parked next to ours just looking out the window watching this whole event unfold. Then I looked behind me and almost laughed so hard I could hardly get the words out of my mouth for the captain and the flight attendant to look back as well. It looked as if every passenger in the terminal that day, to include the gate agents from every airline was looking out our windows as our aircraft was getting hosed down with white foam.

Well as they finished putting out the fire, ramp workers suddenly realized that the bags loaded on our aircraft was suppose to be loaded on our company aircraft parked next to us. So here these people are sitting on their plane watching the fire department put out the fire on our plane. Then they watched the ramp workers pull all these bags off our plane. Put them on a cart. Then pull the cart around to their plane and start loading these bags onto their plane. The one thing that I should point out is that only one or two of the bags weren’t dripping with foam.

Well remember I told you that I wish I had pulled all my stuff off the plane. After the fire department put the fire out, the police then set up a blockade around our aircraft and wouldn’t let us on the aircraft to get our stuff until after the FAA inspector and NTSB inspector arrived. The only reason I wanted to get my stuff was because I figured that we were going right back to the hotel for another great overnight. Of course all of my hopes were dashed when the captain got off the phone with dispatch and told me what they told him. He said that dispatch told him that after the aircraft was inspected, we would take the aircraft up for a test flight then load all the passengers on the aircraft and finish our flight schedule.

Thankfully smarter minds prevailed and we ended up taking another plane to Newark then a bus to the hotel were we spent the night in the only hotel in Newark were there is nothing around for miles except a prison and the airport.

[ExpressJet Roger]

Let me know if you have problems opening the photos

[AlanS-SC-907]

Now that's a story, wow...

[ExpressJet Roger]

Thanks Alan,

I am glad you guys enjoy my stories. I plan on getting another story out very soon. Had a three day that I plan to call the good, the bad, and the ugly (just like the movie, ok that may have just been funny to me, I'm that old I guess ha ha ha). This month is a little easier than all the previous months this year, so I plan to use some of that free time I will have to put pen to paper. Hope you enjoy.

[Republic Airlines Ken]

Originally Posted by ExpressJet Roger

I plan on getting another story out very soon.

Just read this. Funny (OK, I can say that because noone was hurt), but I'm hoping for your sake that you don't have another story very soon due to that type of excitement!

[ExpressJet Roger]

Thank you so much for the comment Ken. I’m really glad you enjoyed reading it. Actually, I have had a few since (i.e. rudder trim runaway, smoke in the lav, and my long day that just kept getting longer dual pack failure decompression emergency decent day). Just stopped writing about this stuff since the midair and the buffalo. To be honest, all of these events plus the ones I have written about were all non events. The ERJ really is a safe aircraft. Even when all this is going on, it still wants to fly. I guess I don’t get too worried when this stuff happens because I am the dork that sits in the hotel room and reads the CFMs and FOMs. I actually want to get back to writing my stories because I too thought they were funny or at least entertaining. I just started getting worried that someone would find these on the internet and say “See, I told you flying was dangerous, or wow XJT really has a lot of close calls.” Even if they didn’t say these exact words, there are people out there that might take and make these stories something they aren’t, entertaining stories. Thanks again for the comment.

Roger