Smoke, Fire and Fumes in Transport Aircraft - Royal Aeronautical ...

INTEGRATED SMOKE, FIRE OR FUMES DRILL STEPS BASED ON THE ‘FSF’ TEMPLATE
An integrated Smoke, Fire & Fumes drill for a ‘generic’ aircraft is presented on the pages that follow. The checklist is in accordance with broad
FSF Template guideline steps, using UK CAA CAP 676 and NASA checklist layout parameters and FOG recommendations. It is laid out in
numbered steps on yellow pages. The same drill is then presented again, the second time using arrows for Navigation and the third time, using
colour on a white background for comparison. Points to note in particular are:
■ This Emergency Drill should be printed in Black letters on Yellow card, like all other QRM drills
■ Some operators and manufacturers use white paper for QRMs to allow use of colour that they consider shows up better against a white
background.
■ The font is a plain Sans Serif Arial, set at 12+ points for improved legibility in smoke.
■ ‘Boxed’ memory items are carried out by crew members as shown (Steps 1 to 6 and 68.1 to 68.12).
■ Memory items should always be followed by reading/using the checklist for confirmation.
■ The dots leading to responses are interspaced with blanks to reduce clutter.
■ There is a space of six points above each line for clarity & separation of instructions.
■ The 20mm margin allows the thumb to be used as a cursor.
■ It shows precisely where to look for any other drill that needs to be carried out at a given step.
■ It shows that the drill continues overleaf at the bottom of each page. A prominent self-evident arrow pointing downwards might also be used
to indicate the drill continues on the next page
■ It shows when the drill ends.
■ Every page clearly indicates the aircraft type and the drill name.
■ The aircraft type and drill name is repeated overleaf to show it is a continuation of the previous page.
■ Aircraft Series (100, 200, 700, etc.,) or Marks (Mk1, Mk2, Mk3, etc.,) and any Engine Variants must be clearly identified at the top of the
page of every checklist with the Drill Name, so that only correct documents are placed in the relevant aircraft's library when changes due
to amendments occur. Clearly captioned pages are best used on the preferred yellow paper for all QRMs.
■ Where a decision must be made leading to a choice of actions, an unambiguous question should allow a simple YES or NO answer, each
leading to the necessary move. YES an NO remain in the same relative position to one another throughout the drill. If answer YES comes
first, then it remains so throughout the checklist.
■ ‘Question’ blocks are clearly separate from preceding and following text for clarity.
■ Abbreviations such as Lt or Rt are not used. To prevent misreading, words are spelled-out, for example, Left and Right.
■ The drill includes an early step which directs the crew to a possible source of smoke or fumes for appropriate actions.
■ The drill also requires that an after-landing emergency passenger evacuation strategy be agreed with the cabin crew at an early stage of
the descent before landing.
■ As an example of a FULLY INTEGRATED checklist, it includes all items required all the way to landing and for any subsequent evacuation,
so that no other checklist is necessary once this one is commenced; except for the heavy/dense smoke & fumes removal/evacuation drill
that immediately follows it in the QRM.
■ Once the Smoke/Fumes removal drill is commenced and the aircraft descended as indicated therein, the pilots are committed to an early
landing. The last step of the Dense/Heavy smoke/fumes removal checklist reflects this.
The FSF philosophy template sequence is largely used in the generic checklist layout that follows. The drill is arranged in numbered steps. A
different presentation using arrows to direct the reader to various other points in the checklist, is also offered in a second example.
The numbered steps example given in the following pages reflects the RAeS Flight Operations Group (FOG) checklist presentation philosophy
and recommended practises. It uses guidelines based upon a previous FOG Specialist Document on Smoke and Fire Drills written in 1999,
the latest FSF layout guidance template for Fire and Smoke drills or checklists and the UK CAA CAP 676 together with the NASA guidelines
on the preparation of checklists.
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Smoke, Fire and Fumes in Transport Aircraft