Hi Frans and all,
I had a light, i think it was 500 gr halon extinguisher under my right hand,
just
behind the P2 headrest. It would have been a costly mistake to try to put out
the fire, even as small as it was in the beginning. It would have been handy
though to extingwish my jeans, once outside.I think i heard it explode real
quickly though. Just for the record the order of the blaze: Saw fuel from the
return line on the right of the cockpit. The emergency landing drill made me
first switch off power, and a fracton of a second later, when i was allready
leaving
the wreck, the fuel ignited. The fire quickly became larger, probably heated
the main fuel tank, and then starded blazing like it was turbocharged. Probably
the tank outlets had blown off. I don't hink that any build method or
improvement could have prevented fuel getting out and or the fire. Most likely
the fuel tank was still in one piece, and it looks from pictures i saw that also
the long range tank survived. Since we can't fly
on water, there will always be a risk. If you search to eliminate all risk, you
will end up with something that does nor fly anymore. The Europa, as designed,
is a safe plane. The rest is risk management. The major risk is stall-spin
related. After that the risk of fire is non significant. The Europa is still
very
controllable at near to stall speeds.
Regards,
Jos Okhuijsen
Visit - www.EuropaOwners.org
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