Some scary moments just after landing but all ended well.
Okay, the tire is on fire, do you evacuate the aircraft, it seems like a good two minutes before evacuation and right now I see a man walking back to the slide to get his papers (lucky for him the a/c doesn’t blow up), I also see a lot of tote bags, purses, briefcases, ehh, I don’t care if I lose my stuff, I want off the aircraft. Planes and fire do not mix.
Glad it worked out OK. I agree it was disturbing to see so many purses and briefcases coming down the slide. Also that it took 2min to get the slides out.
I was confused to see video beginning before touchdown, yet FD didn’t arrive for almost 2 min. If they knew to start the camera, why not the FD? Then the article says there was no indication of trouble before touchdown, so that means FD got there in 2 min with no warning – sounds fairly good.
So this must have been a security cam in routine operation with someone watching and steering it.
This would make a good instructional video on how NOT to evacuate an airplane that is on fire.
It was a news chopper that just happened to be in the right place at the right time.
It’s very easy to Monday Morning Quarterback but … that is a little disturbing. That one guy dumped his brief case at the bottom of the slide. The crew didn’t seem to know what to do. Half the pax evacuated the burning plane and stood under the opposite wing FULL OF FUEL. And the hero in the Expedition could have extinguished the burning tire with a fire extinguisher.
I’m glad everyone got out ok and it turned out to be a minor event. Hopefully this and some other recent incidents (ie CO Denver) will help improve the industry training and procedures.
I wonder how long it took for the crew to be notified that they were on fire. It was so small the tower (depending on where it was situated relative to the A/C) may not have seen it and may have had to relay info from the approaching crash trucks. Looks like they started to evacuate a little after the equipment showed up.
I can maybe understand the delay in evacuating but not that Choad with the briefcase. 
I’d like to track him down and light his precious papers on fire myself. 
Earlier in the video (0:14-0:17) they had a huge plume of smoke during deceleration. Just after that (0:18-0:25) there was a long shower of sparks and/or flame. The tower must have seen one or both. (Don’t know what side the tower would have been on.) Can anybody find the ATC recording for this?
Rolling on two wheels and dragging a stump, it might have been tough to keep it going straight – another clue. Probably some screaming in the cabin. Looks like they stopped on the active runway; if so, they must have known by then.
I still expected to see a door pop open within 10 sec, like on the Hudson. But maybe the F/A took the time to choose what side to open. (In Denver, they knew immediately which side was on fire; this time, it might have been more ambiguous.) If you choose wrong, I assume you can’t close the door again.
Witnessing all the folks trying to bring their personal effects down the slide with them is disturbing, but only to the extent that it makes me wonder just what my reaction would be in that instance if I were told to leave my precious laptop behind as I deplaned. This is a question that I have often asked myself as the FAs describe our expected reactions to a slide deployment.
If you open the wrong door and are engulfed in flames, it’s difficult to close the door again.
You can’t usually extinguish a tire or, more notably, a magnesium fire with a handheld fire extinguisher. 
Ergo, no heroics by the “hero” in the Expedition.
Let me preface this statement with I’m not a mechanic. That said, I doubt as JHEM said anyone who knows anything about hot brakes is going to run up with a hand held extinguisher and attempt to put out a brake / tire fire…I wouldn’t. Hell I can think of a couple flights where the a/c would arrive and we were told by a/c mx not to chock the main gear due to the brake heat.
Second the statement of running under the other FULLY fueled wing?! Really you pumped the fuel on and know the fuel remaining? Come on man you know better then that 
It did look a bit crazy seeing everyone scattered. But again JHEM made a good point how would I / anyone react? Me, if my family was there would be to get them, f my stuff.
As for when to open the door…well I would imagine the capt. had to kill both engines and let them spool down just a touch otherwise there would have been human bowling balls going back up the rwy.
When are you told this by maintenance?
Or are there certain planes that have a history of hot brakes and you just don’t chock em at the mains? I take it you still chock the nose wheel then?
Back in the day JAL B747-200 / 300 from NRT, if capt. would use lots of brakes on arr., they would call ops and tell them and mx would tell us stay away. I also remember a couple LH flights, same thing but on a DC-10-30. It happens 
To answer about the nose, yes they would get taken care of.
Maybe. Maybe not. I might be wrong here, but I don’t believe that watching an aircraft’s touchdown and roll-out is high on a tower controller’s priority list, especially at a busy field like KHOU. From the controller’s perspective, the first sign of trouble might’ve been when the aircraft didn’t vacate the active runway as expected.
I’ve been trying to find the video I saw recently of an aircraft landing in, I believe, China and having several tires progressively explode from fires caused by overheated brakes. All while MX crew were futilely trying to put out the flames with handheld extinguishers.
I’ll post it when I find it.
Surely they must have smelled the burning rubber. At minimum they might have seen the smoke or fire. That was a fairly large fire burning right under their fuel tank. This could have turned ugly in seconds.
The hero in the Expedition could have pissed on it or used a water extinguisher. 
Seems the pilot of the helo shoting the video could have radioed the plane directly. 
LOL! As a female, I can honestly say that I’ve never considered urine for fire suppression. Brings to mind the old cliche: Always have the right tool for the job
A wing with some fuel in it will blow up enough to kill everyone as much as a fully fueled wing. Unless this plane was forced down by fuel exhaustion, it had enough fuel in the wing to kill everyone around in a fireball. The uniformed pilot walked right past all those pax standing under/next to the wing. It wasn’t until he got to a plain clothed woman marshaling everyone did he turn around and start telling the others to move away. That woman might have been a commuting pilot or stewardess. After that, everyone started running so far away they had to be called back before they crossed another runway.
I don’t know how I would react. Calm, cool and collected as usual I guess.
Yes IF and it is a big IF the fuel would have gone up there would have been one hell of a bbq. 8)
I just want one oz of that clam cool collected attatude.
I just watched the video again and probably wouldn’t be as calm as first thought. I’d probably beat the pulp out of the guy in blue taking pictures and anyone who made it out with their bags. “Must have hit his head during evacuation.”
wtf, are you outside my window, I just watched the video again over on cnn…I like the guy on the cell phone with the very large laptop breifcase, my new hero I would have laid him out in the field right there next to the a/c…OR maybe the guy trying to chase his papers f’ing genius
p.s. post 900!!!