How much time does a pilot have between the first indication of smoke and getting the aircraft on the ground?
A. It varies. The FAA claims from 8 to 20 minutes. Dr. Barbara Burian, a researcher from the NASA Ames Research Center, noted that, in a study of 15 in-flight fires that occurred between January 1967 and September 1998, the Transportation Safety Board of Canada found that the average amount of time between the detection of an onboard fire and when the aircraft ditched, made a forced landing, or crashed was 17 minutes. In some cases the time to react is much shorter. For example, when the pilots from ValuJet 592 radioed in May 1996 for an immediate return to Miami International airport because of “smoke in the cockpit,” they had only been airborne for six minutes and 17 seconds. In slightly over three minutes from that initial request, interspersed with a frantic plea for the “nearest available airport,” the ValuJet DC-9 fatally crashed.
