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No Worries Chief - It's just a small general aviation plane, right?
Most of us in the United States have a local or municipal airport nearby. They range from the private homeowner and his grass runway - to the small town or privately owned airport - to the bigger FAA controlled and certificated airport.
Regardless of the size of your nearby airport. Structural firefighters have a new hazard to deal with when responding to and sizing up a downed aircraft. BRS -Ballistic Recovery Systems or Ballisitic Parachutes!
I teach alot of firefighter training. Some of which is type specific like Aircraft Rescue Fire Fighting. But with other types of firefighter training, the subject I bring fourth today, is one that can bite fiefighters in a town even without an airport...
The firefighter's personal safety hazards are clearly "less" when the aircraft has previously glided down like the one in the photo above. The ballistic rocket charge has been expelled and the parachute is pretty visable upon the first due company's size-up.
The greater hazard or the hazard I want to talk about today is when that aircraft appears to "just be a little general aviation aircraft" that is crashed into the woods, field, neighborhood without the obvious parachute present.
Our military brothers are more than familiar with the hazards associated with pilot ejection systems and weapons contained within military aircraft. But now the average firefighter, regardless of your status, who may not even be ARFF trained, needs to understand that general aviation aircraft may contain these ballistic systems. Cirrus is just one manufacturer of an aircraft that have the system installed at the factory, but there are now other companies who are retro-fitting older general aviation aircraft for the added protection of the occupants.
Please take 21 minutes of your day, 21 minutes of your shift's day or 21 minutes of your next department's training meeting to review this FREE, narrated, powerpoint and video lesson from the FAA.
http://www.faa.gov/airports/airport_safety/aircraft_rescue_fire_fig...
It just may save your firefighter's life at the next aircraft response...
FETC
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Mike Schlags (Captain Busy) Retd on
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another exceptional post with a rare but good to know subject in which the author is clearly very knowledgeable about... good stuff FETC.
CBz
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Permalink Reply by Fireyladd - Retired Chief Sharp on
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Good info. Thanks for sharing.
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Permalink Reply by Rusty Mancini on
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Great Info. FETC.
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Permalink Reply by Oldman on
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Cirrus Aircraft was on of the first manufacturers to employ BRS in their airframes. There are now FAA approved retrofit kits available for many GA aircraft including; Cessna and Piper, and the Quicksilver ultralight aircraft.
With the addition of the Light Sport Aircraft pilot certification by the FAA, these systems are starting to show up on production models as standard equipment.
Great topic.
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Permalink Reply by FETC on
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Exactly Oldman, that is why I mentioned that in the second to last paragraph. They are in all different kinds of general aviation aircraft. The old adage, that is just a piper or cessna is far from the truth with retrofitted BRS, and the new airbag retrofitted seatbelts.
To this date BRS reports 243 lives saved.
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Permalink Reply by Ron Ayotte on
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Nice find, FETC. We have a small GA airport (FAA designation 9B1) in town. We have had transient pilots flying LSA's come in; as of now there are no BRS equipped aircraft based at 9B1, but that can change.
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Permalink Reply by Mick Mayers on
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We have an airport here on the Island. But people prefer to land on the beach: http://www2.wsav.com/sav/news/local/lowcountry/article/reports_plan...
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Permalink Reply by Ben Waller on
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Definately one of the more unusual calls I've ever worked.
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What were we doing with the firefighters and rescue rope? Were we securing it so high tide wouldn't take it away?
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It was a utility rope anchored to a picket system.
It did the intended job of securing the aircraft so that movement from the surf and the tide would be minimized until the NTSB investigators could arrive.
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