The fuselage of the jetliner involved in a collision on a
The fire is shaping up as a key test of the safety of composite materials compared with conventional airplane fuselages made of aluminum.
Investigators appear to be focusing immediately on communication between the pilots of both planes and air traffic controllers at
Safety experts are praising the airline's crew after everybody was able to escape the burning jetliner. Five people on the coast guard plane were killed.
Composites have been used for many years inside commercial planes, such as the floorboards and other structures.
Airbus followed in 2018 with the A350 — like the two-year-old plane involved in Tuesday’s collision — and has sold about 570 of them.
WHAT IS THE MATERIAL?
In airplanes, composite materials contain
ARE THERE CONCERNS?
The strength of composites was tested during certification by regulators including the
“There has always been a concern about composites if they catch fire because the fumes are toxic,” said
DID IT MAKE A DIFFERENCE?
While the
“That fuselage protected them from a really horrific fire — it did not burn through for some period of time and let everybody get out,” said safety consultant
Goglia said there is no real-world evidence on whether composite skins are any better or worse than aluminum at resisting fire and heat long enough to give passengers a chance to escape.
Aircraft manufacturers are supposed to show that their planes can be evacuated in 90 seconds with half the exits blocked, although skeptics question the accuracy of
On Tuesday night, video captured a fireball on the JAL plane as it continued down the runway after the crash.
“The flammability issue is something they have to look at, but obviously nobody (on the jetliner) burned to death,” said aviation attorney
IS THE SMOKE ESPECIALLY DANGEROUS?
Passengers on the
There has long been concern about toxic smoke released when
As far back as the 1990s, the
“From early reports, it appears that there was a significant amount of smoke in the cabin, and it is not yet clear if any of the smoke was from burning composites,” said
Curtis said a key follow-up for investigators and regulators will be monitoring whether passengers or firefighters were injured by exposure to toxic smoke from the burning composite.
Those injuries could take a long time to show up, said
WAS THE FIRE HARDER TO PUT OUT?
Another concern, experts said, was the amount of time it took firefighters at Haneda to extinguish the blaze, and the risk to the first responders.
Curtis, the former
The official report said the fire at
Curtis said that incident made him worry about fuselage fires on the ground and in the air back in 2013, “and these concerns have not gone away.”
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