Scat B733 at Aktau on Jun 16th 2015, aircraft burned at gate

Last Update: April 28, 2020 / 15:58:29 GMT/Zulu time

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Incident Facts

Date of incident
Jun 16, 2015

Classification
Accident

Airline
Scat Airlines

Flight number
DV-742

Departure
Astana, Kazakhstan

Destination
Aktau, Kazakhstan

Aircraft Registration
LY-FLB

Aircraft Type
Boeing 737-300

ICAO Type Designator
B733

A Scat Airlines Boeing 737-300, registration LY-FLB performing flight DV-742 from Astana to Aktau (Kazakhstan), had completed an uneventful flight, the passengers had disembarked and the aircraft was being prepared for the next sector with maintenance works being conducted, when an oxygen cylinder exploded and started a fire in the forward cabin, that caused substantial damage to the aircraft before emergency services were able to put the fire out.

Kazakhstan's Ministry of Transport reported in a press release the fire broke out in the forward cargo bay between STA360 and STA440 between S-24R and S-18R stringers. An oxygen hose to carry compressed oxygen was damaged while charging the oxygen cells on board from the supply on land resulting in an instant self-inflammation of the compressed oxygen due to dynamically disturbed oxygen flow mixing with dust and fine powder environment in the forward cargo compartment near the oxygen cells of the aircraft oxygen system. (Editorial note: the final report itself can not be found however).

On Apr 28th 2020 a reader located the final report in Russian only by Kazakhstan's Authorities on Lithuania's Accident Investigation Board's website (Editorial note: to serve the purpose of global prevention of the repeat of causes leading to an occurrence an additional timely release of all occurrence reports in the only world spanning aviation language English would be necessary, a Russian only release does not achieve this purpose as set by ICAO annex 13 and just forces many aviators to waste much more time and effort each in trying to understand the circumstances leading to the occurrence. Aviators operating internationally are required to read/speak English besides their local language, investigators need to be able to read/write/speak English to communicate with their counterparts all around the globe).

The report concludes the probable causes of the accident were:

The accident without human casualties involving Boeing 737-322 with registration LY-FLB was caused by a fire in the forward cargo bay area between STA 380 and STA 440 as well as stringers S-24R and S-18R.

The cause of the fire was a spontaneous destruction of an oxygen hose while compressed air was refilled from a ground source.

An additional cause was the self ignition of compressed oxygen due to dynamically disturbed oxygen flow mixing with dust and fine powder in the forward cargo compartment near the aircraft's oxygen tanks.

The Kazhak Authorities reported the aircraft had completed an uneventful flight from Astana to Aktau, the passengers and crew had disembarked the aircraft. The aircraft's oxygen system indicated a pressure of 900 psi prompting maintenance activity to refill the oxygen tanks. Two maintenance engineers, both properly qualified, prepared the oxygen tanks for connecting the external equipment, connected the hose of the external equipment and checked for no leaks. No leaks were found. Subsequently the valve of the external equipment, with a pressure of 1800 psi, was opened, the pressure at the oxygen tank was checked and the tank's valve opened. At that point there was a "Clap" near the oxygen cylinders followed by ignition, the fire quickly spreaded to the fuselage structure. The engineer jumped off the aircraft, closed the valve at the oxygen equipment and brought a fire extinguisher. The agent however could not reach the main fire due to the rupture of the hose of the fire extinguisher. The external oxygen equipment was removed from the aircraft, another fire extinguisher was brought and being discharged, when its hose ruptured too, hence there was no effective fire fighting possible with the primary fire fighting means. Only when the airport fire trucks arrived effective fire fighting was done.
Incident Facts

Date of incident
Jun 16, 2015

Classification
Accident

Airline
Scat Airlines

Flight number
DV-742

Departure
Astana, Kazakhstan

Destination
Aktau, Kazakhstan

Aircraft Registration
LY-FLB

Aircraft Type
Boeing 737-300

ICAO Type Designator
B733

This article is published under license from Avherald.com. © of text by Avherald.com.
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