Below is a collection of Air Safety Week articles that pertain to a study and a resulting bulletin that boeing sent to all MD-11 operators, following the tragedy of sr111.

Inflight Fire Procedures Bulletin Sparks Sharp Reactions

Pilots faced with the uncertainty of a raging inflight
electrical fire may have to improvise procedures, according
to a recent Boeing bulletin to all MD-11
operators.

It's advice has generated sharply differing views.
They range from support for the company's willingness
to address inflight electrical fires to critisism
that the bulletin leaves the pilots facing horrible
choices. The one question pilots asked was along these
lines: If Boeing spent months studying the MD-11's
defenses against inflight electrical fires, concluding
that existing procedures are adequate, how can pilots
facing the extreme peril of an electrical fire, perhaps
with smoke filling the cockpit and the anxiety level
rising even faster, arive at better procedures to modify
or tailor the existing ones?

A Boeing official countered that the June 1 Flight Operations
Bulletin specifically declared, "The list of variables is
too great for the manufacturer to develop one single
procedure that would be best for all possible
scenarios."

This official said the reaction of the technical and
chief pilots to whom the bulletin was sent has
been
most positive. The bulletin, according to the Boeing
official, was issued to answer questions that have been
raised in the industry since the September 1998 crash of
Swissair Flight 111.

To critics, the bulletin's
suggestions may err on the side of expecting the crew to
perform an emergency analysis with incomplete knowledge
of the aircraft's systems, and incomplete- if not
conflicting - information regarding the location of an
electrical fire. As an example, the electronics on the MD-11
instrument panel are cooled by air flowing from below. The
smoke seeping out around the instrument panel might not
be from a fire immediately behind, but from one
below in the electronics and equipment bay.

The
greatest misgivings were expressed about Boeing's
discussion of procedures to isolate and kill power to an
electrical fire, notably the multiple position
smoke/electrical switch, which basically swaps around
configurations looking for the benign one. Working through this
procedure, in which each of three main electrical system
busses is isolated in turn, can take 30 minutes or more.
From the Swissair Flight 111 crew's first call of a
problem ("pan,pan,pan") to impact at Halifax was some 16
minutes. Yet if crews go through the switch positions too
quickly, the source of the problem may go undetected.
Conversely, the longer the time spent in any one switch
position, the longer it may take for other potential
sources to be isolated. The Boeing bulletin offers no
solution to this conundrum.

"We need a simple approach," declared an MD-11
captain. "The big picture is to land as soon as
possible,"he said.

The situation, sources say, may be
glaringly straightforward:

1.Faced with 10,000
degrees F eletrical arcing, the location of which is
uncertain, all non-essential circuits need to be cut
immediately.

2.Then the crew must look for a 2000 degree F chemical
fire, which is far easier to control with standard fire
fighting techniques and extinguishers.

3.Head for
the ground and land as soon as possible (the
necessity of which is mentioned at least six times in the
Boeing bulletin.

The one overarching problem with
the Boeing bulletin, critics say, is that it presents
an alternative along these lines, buried deep in
paragraph IV, but with the noncommittal phrase that the
company is only "considering" publishing it. One source
summed up the bulletin thusly: "We're not sure what to
tell you, but you need a plan."

That may be a
bit hard, the the line of reasoning in the Boeing
bulletin, however tentative or muddled, is significant. One
pilot said the bulletin provides mute evidence of the
need for "redeveloping the philosophical approach" to
deal with inflight electrical fires. In this respect,
Boeing's bulletin could open the door to a far-reaching
discussion.

From Air Safety Week.

Applicable to: All MD-11 Aircraft
Subject: Supplemental Information to
MD-11 Flight Crews on Inflight Smoke/Fire
Procedures

Bulletin No. MD-11-99-04
1 June 1999

Following
the tragic crash of an MD-11 last September, the
Boeing Company has been conducting exhaustive reviews of
various aspects of the design and operation of the
airplane, including our recommended smoke procedures. While
the cause of the accident is still unknown, and the
Boeing Company is not sure which procedures the flight
crew used, several operators have requested that
Boeing review the existing procedures, as well as
possible alternatives.

1.The Smoke/Fumes of
Electrical, Air Conditioning, or Unknown Origin checklist
procedure developed for the MD-11 is derived from several
DC-10 checklist procedures...The smoke switch used in
this procedure conditioning system in each position
other than NORM...
II.If an electrical malfunction
results in a fire, isolation and de-powering of the
source will not necessarily extinguish the fire in an
MD-11 or DC-10 or any aircraft...
III.The decision
to perform the Smoke/Fumes of...unknown origin
procedure must be made...based on the
circumstances...Depending on the nature and severity of the smoke or fumes,
the proper execution of this procedure could be
lenghy (up to 30 minutes or more). The flight crew must
be careful not to move through the different switch
positions too quickly, or a source of smoke and/or fumes
might go undetected. On the other hand, the more time
spent in one position, the longer it will be before
other potential soures are isolated...
IV.If an
event occurs while an aircraft is in a reasonable
position to land (to land was underlined in the article),
the flight crew may elect to use alternative
procedures - such as unpowering all non-essential electrical
or air conditioning systems. For example, this could
be done by placing the electrical system in MANUAL,
tripping the engine generator bus relays. This would put
the aircraft on Emergency power and isolate all but
the battery bus and the left AC and DC emergency
busses...Boeing is considering publishing this as an alternative
procedure...
V.As a supplement to the existing FCOM (Flight Crew
Operating Manual) procedures, here is some advice that the
Boeing Company can give:

A.Consider using the
Cabin Bus Off switch immediately if there is a reason
to suspect a specific cabin component, such as a
galley, lavatory, lighting, or the passenger service
units...
B.Consider Navigation, communication, and fuel dumping
requirements before eliminating major sources of electrical
power through alternative methods.
C.Consider
using..the cabin crew, in attempting to determine if a fire
exists, or to determine if the smoke or fumes are
dissipating.
D.Analyze the situation and determine if an emergency
landing (underlined in the article), is necessary. If so,
don't delay to dump fuel if a runway of sufficient
length is available...Boeing has demonstrated landings
at maximum takeof gross weight...Stopping distance
is the only real concern. But even then, consider
whether you would rather be on the ground - or in the
air.
E.If it has been confirmed that there is/was a fire,
it must be dealt with immediately...Prepare for a
landing as soon as possible (underlined), with a possible
emergency evacuation. Determine who will fly the airplane,
talk on the radio and make landing decisions, and
decide who will direct the fire fighting duties. One
person cannot do it all...

F...Boeing advises that anytime smoke has been
detected and the source cannot be POSITIVELY identified
and eliminated, THE AIRCRAFT SHOULD BE LANDED AS SOON
AS POSSIBLE. CONSIDER AN EMERGENCY DESCENT after a
landing decision has been made.
G...Boeing recommends
that the aircraft should be LANDED AS SOON AS POSSIBLE
following an event in which a fire has occurred..and cannot
be completely analyzed by the crew to include its
impact on other systems. CONSIDER AN EMERGENCY DESCENT
after a landing decision has been made.
VI. The
Boeing Company has spent many months considering whether
the existing procedures for smoke and fumes
identification and isolation are adequate...A review of all
previous in-service some incidents has confirmed that the
vast majority could have been isolated and controlled
using the existing Cabin Bus Off/Smoke witch
procedure...
VII..In the aftermath of the Sr-111 accident...Here are
some topics Boeing feels are appropriate for further
consideration on an industry-wide basis:
A.Are there
established training programs for fighting in-flight
fires...?
B....Should the cabin altitude be raised during a fire to
reduce the amount of oxygen in the cabin - or is that
insignificant?
C.Are procedures in place which would involve using the
cabin crew in the cockpit?
D.Do crews have a fire
fighting plan...? If you have an in-flight fire, it's too
late to develop a plan.

This quote appeared in Air Safety Week in
response to Boeing's Bulletin:

"They are slowly
conceding that all is not well, not only with the smoke
checklist but with the systems wherewithal for combating
electrical fires, particularly those associated with wiring
insulation...The solution to that quandry is less than
satisfactory...The MD-11 crews for which it was intended will be no
wiser and probably considerably more
apprehensive."
John Sampson, retired Austalian pilot (and safety
expert)

The bulletin:

http://www.aviationtoday.com/reports/smoke.htm

Competent To Comment
A new checklist is
needed for coping with in-flight smoke and fires along
the lines hinted at, but not endorsed, in Boeing's
MD-11 supplemental bulletin of last June. Readers will
recall that this bulletin, intended to clarify matters
regarding in-flight fire emergencies on MD-11 aircraft, was
criticized for possibly adding to the confusion (see ASW,
June 28). Now comes the Air Line Pilots Association
(ALPA), urging Boeing [BA] in a Sept. 10 letter to
"develop a new checklist which contains as a first step
the suggested 'alternative' action of unpowering
non-essential electrical and air conditioning
systems."

"We feel that we are competent to advance a technical
opinion on your position," the ALPA letter, signed by
Executive Air Safety Chairman Paul McCarthy, declared. The
current checklist, which can take 30 minutes to execute,
with no guarantee of isolating the source of an
electrical fire, "provides no assistance in a time-critical
fire situation," the ALPA letter declared. Crews need
better guidance than a Hobson's Choice, ALPA argued. "If
smoke is not normal, then the first step of any
procedure should be LAND AS SOON AS POSSIBLE (emphasis in
original). This is the last statement on the current Boeing
checklist," the letter said. ALPA, tel. 703/688-2270