It sounds like you and I have been reading the same (or at least similar) information. But context is everything. One thing folks seem to agree on is that keeping the plane in the air when you have had or might have an engine fire is a significant risk because it's difficult for the pilot to tell at any given time whether the fire has been extinguished. So, getting the plane on the ground quickly is a good idea. I think that's consistent with what Dr.W has said here.Gadianton wrote: ↑Tue Apr 13, 2021 3:24 pmI wasn't sure how much you were intending on continuing to participate, but if you're here, I would like your take on nose dives.Dr. W wrote: Problem is, there is no evidence whatsoever for such an engine-out event, let alone one with a fire and a death spiral plunge in flames with a miraculous left engine re-start to save God's chosen.
I've done a fair bit of googling, and last night I spent some time in the database, and I'm just not coming up with much.
My gut reaction to nosediving an aircraft with people on board given what I know so far, is it seems crazy. It seems like someone has been watching WWII movies. But, I have to say, I read one semi-official source that suggested a nose-dive is on the table for putting out a fire; noting this is a controversial topic among pilots. Other than that, other than a single semi-official source saying that some pilots might suggest it (for unspecified context, solo? commercial? etc. ) and it's super risky, nothing I've read suggests a practice of nosediving civilian airplanes to put out an engine fire. I've read several fire mitigation check lists and nothing there. I've read that maintaining a certain speed in descent is important to 'blow the flame out' in a scenario with no engine due to fire. But that's not a nose dive, nor a pull up at the last second before impact.
In looking through these incidents or accidents in the database, later accounts are generally more detailed than earlier accounts, but I have yet to find an example of nosediving to put out a fire. Nor have I uncovered a news article where a pilot heroically nose-dived a civilian craft to get the flame out. I have uncovered references to other mitigation efforts, which have included notes about how the plane landed, cutting power to engines and so on. Perhaps in one of those, a nose dive and sudden pull-up also happened, it just didn't get mentioned.
To honor, I'd say that i'm trying to be very fair with my skepticism here, as I'm still looking for an example, mostly because one source mentioned nosedives might be considered. If it weren't for that one source, I wouldn't be looking. So yes, I'm staving off my skepticism at these points I feel I need to, and erroring on the side of caution.
The records available online are not much help because they omit incidents before 1978 and all that's available are fairly terse summaries of NTSB accident reports.
It strikes me that if you're just interested in what pilots do, you could run the same search on the NTSB's updated CAROL database, which is more complete and provides much more detail. It would not be for the correct years, but might provide some examples for what pilots have done in similar situations.