How does a wet cloth really help (scientifically) to survive an airplane crash?

[Jasen Betts]

you wouldn't want to wet it with vodka, or whiskey and have it catch fire.

A quick searh found no reactions ot HCN with dilute or concentrated alchols. I think it's mainly the fire risk.

[Jasen Betts]

as I understand it the HCN is produced when plastics containing nitrogen burn in an oxygen poor environment. Stuff like synthetic rubber upholstery, pulyurethane foam insulation and and melamine tray-tables

[David Platt]

As I understand it, this is akin to the major reason you're supposed to get out of a computer room if the Halon extinguishers are triggered. The Halon itself isn't particularly hazardous (at the concentrations used in these systems), but the combustion byproducts from burning plastics and etc. are really nasty. The Halon suppresses some of the flame reactions and stops the fire, but it doesn't get rid of the poisonous partially-combusted plastics and other decomposed flammables.

[micky]

What do I care if it's not immediately dangerous if it's dangerous later. I inhale smoke and I don't die in 5 minutes, but I'm sick 20 minutes later, or 2 days later, and I die 3 days later, or I'm sickly for the rest of my life These are all bad.

I just learned a couple days ago that my brother's aunt died of mesothelioma, a cancer associated with exposure to asbestos,

She wasn't a steam fitter. She worked in an office. At the age of 30 she moved 20 miles downwind from a steel company, and it didn't kill her immediately, but it still killed her. Why do you think all that matters is if something is *immediately* dangerous?

[micky]

Give me a break. Now you're using nonsense to try to refute facts.

If you google smoke inhalation, you likely may read that the US ambassador to Libya who died in the fire at the consulate in Bengazi, Ambassador Stevens, did not die from burns but from smoke inhalation. Do you think he really died of a broken heart, or that they just called it smoke inhalation to mess up this thead for you?

No one's guessing, lady, except you.

You've lost this argument. Give it up. No matter what you might yet successfullly show about fire deaths, you lost when you said that we (meanig you) could safely assume something just because the opposite was not written in a short article. You have to abandon that method of thinking, or at least not bring it up here, and then you might have your future posts taken more seriously.

[micky]

And that will really dilate her cervix?

If so, that's a good thing to know.

[micky]

I've certainly thought about that.

[Guv Bob]

& vapors suspended in the fire atmosphere.

fatalities

combustion gases

with the oxygen supply to tissues

respiration rate causing an increase in the uptake of other combustion gases

generated from burning wire insulation

concentrations decrease during fires.

smoke particulates;

gases (i.e., hydrogen cyanide & hydrogen chloride).

particulates is

respiratory arrest.

Logically, breathing through a wet cloth would also remove more particulate matter than through a dry cloth. Try blowing cigarette smoke thru a dry handkerchief and a wet one and you'll see a big difference.

[micky]

Your career is not in science, is it? Neither is mine, but I still know we can't safely assume things like this from the absence of mentioning cooling hot air. There are other good reasons but the simplest is that the pdf files might be crap. There is plenty of crap on the web, and even peer reviewed journals occasionally publish crap.

Here's an extreme case, but other circumstances yield similar resutls. My roommate was a biology PhD candidate doing research in a foreign county. A bunch of grad students all stayed at the same rural room & board place and did there research in the jungle that surrounded them. One of them would stop by where someone else was working and he'd chat. Embedded in the conversation was "What experiement are you doing? What kind of results are you getting?" And then he'd go back to his room and write a journal article, send it to a journal, and because his writing style was good, clear etc. it often got published.

Other times, he didn't go out of his room. He just sat back and asked himself, What would a good experiement be? And what kind of results might I get? And then he'd write an article based on those two things.

He was published in every peer-reviewed journal in his field (and non-peer-reviewed if there were such things then).

It was only after his artcles appeared that sometimes people would write in, "I did that experiment and my results were nolthing like his." But before many people were aware of his habits he had his PhD and no one could take it away. Eventually he was drummed out of any faculty job and end up working in a biology library at a university library.

Not all articles are as felonious as his, but some are crap or semi-crap.. Others are good except they omit things, important things.

So you shouldn't be assuming things because something is missing from the articles you find, and more important, you should stop saying, WE can safely assume. Speak for yourself. Not for us.

[Kurt Ullman]

The reason you want to get heck out of a Halon environment is that is displaces the oxygen so you have nothing to breathe. (It works on the "air" part of the old fire triangle).

[Stormin Mormon]

And then discard the cloth, as it's full of toxins.

[Stormin Mormon]

I've taken some fire training courses. Halon is low enough levels, that one can remain in the room. I've seen movies of a test dump. The guy looked a bit frieked out but was OK at the end of the movie.

There were some system using carbon dioxide, and those displace oxygen.

Halon works on the fourth side of the triangle, sustained chemical reaction. Actually fire tetrahedron.

[Kurt Ullman]

Price I pay for relying on 30+ year old memories.

One of my mentors suggested a fire pentahedron. fuel, heat, oxidation material, chemical reaction, and Chief Officers. You take any one away and the fire goes out.

[trader_4]

asw_sept06_p28-30.pdf

That's been my point. She keeps making assumptions that aren't supported by anything, then implies that it's scientific. The basic method she uses is because something isn't specifically mentioned, then we can assume that it's harmless, not a factor at all, etc.

Regarding the PDF files, the FAA one in particular, isn't some great scientific work. It's a brief handout to tell people they should use a wet rag, if possibile. They aren't going to go through every angle and factor in a brief guide. The purpose of the handout is just to get you to use a wet rag, so they are going to hit the main points. It also looks like it could have been written in the 50's.

She takes the fact that they don't specifically say that inhaling soot/particles can cause injury and then uses that to "safely assume" it's just an "inconvenience". I cited other articles from NFPA, Fire Engin eering, that say otherwise.

+1

[RobertMacy]

I HATE the 'expert' syndrome where we all must disavow ourselves of any knowledge, or input; the concepts are just too lofty for our peasant brains to fathom; and we must believe everything that has been written. That stuff is just like 'NEWS', can't always be trusted. One has to 'cull' for truth.

Some other real examples: some of the experimental research done during the Communist era in Russia. Wasn't that experiment where the 'scientists' took a baby duck out into a submarine, hit it [the duck, not the submarine] with a hammer, and caused simultneous great distress to the mother duck all faked? just to continue funding for their 'research'. Sounded reasonable, too.

[Ann Marie Brest]

Again I must have not made myself clear.

Clearly I googled and found plenty of articles which said that hydrogen cyanide is the killer and that the wet rag dissolved it - but that isn't my point to you in this post.

Some of those articles I quoted were FAA summaries, others were air-safety brochures from the likes of Airbus & Boeing, while still others were peer-reviewed scientific papers (all of which were referenced).

My point, that I must be not saying clearly, is that the alternate view (which you, and others espouse) has absolutely zero references backing it up.

Again, I hope I am being clear here. I'm not saying the points that you and others espouse are wrong. I'm just saying that not one single paper has been provided in support of that alternate view.

I think it's unfortunate that I said "we can safely assume" since you keep thinking that I'm assuming something that you don't assume.

Again, trying to be very clear about what my point is, it's simply that nobody yet has provided a single reference that backs up the alternate view.

Whether we can safely assume anything about that alternate view seems to be your point - but it's not mine. My point is that the alternative view is not supported by any facts which have been presented in this thread.

Again, to be perfectly clear. I'm not saying that those facts don't exist. I'm just saying NOBODY can find a paper which supports those facts.

I apologize for saying 'we can safely assume' because that sentence seems to throw people into a defensive mode. Remove that and replace it with something like "I have not seen any references which back up the view espoused" or something like that which simply says that the opinion has been stated but not backed up with anything concrete.

So, I only concluded what I could conclude from the papers which I found, and referenced.

Is my point clear yet? (If not, I apologize.)

[Ann Marie Brest]

I think you missed the point, and again, I apologize for misleading you.

It's the LACK OF PROOF that is dominant here. Not proof taken out of context (which is what your example is portraying).

For the hydrogen-cyanide-wet-cloth theory, I provided oodles of PDFs (from the FAA, from airplane manufacturers, from Fire Departments, and from universities) which backed up my statements.

The alternate view has ZERO articles backing it up.

What am I *supposed* to conclude about the fact that the alternative view has absolutely ZERO references backing it up?

Given your example, it's like something that never happened that was also never printed in the NEWS.

Since it never happened, and, likewise, since it never made it into the news, what does that make it (besides an urban myth)?

I'm sorry if I'm not clear - so I repeat.

What am I *supposed* to conclude from the proposed alternative view which has absolutely ZERO references backing it up?

[Ann Marie Brest]

Actually, in one of the references I read (I think it was the OSHA one), it mentioned how to properly dispose of the hydrogen-cyanide-laced protective gear after it was used.

[Ann Marie Brest]

I have no problem with the logic - but it may also be an urban myth.

What should we conclude from the fact that absolutely ZERO articles have been posted to this thread coming from the FAA to the airplane manufacturers to the airline-safety fire departments to the airline-safety research universities which back up this hypothesis?

To repeat clearly, absolutely ZERO articles have been posted to this thread that report that smoke particles are a life-threatening danger to your breathing in an airplane cabin fire and that a wet towel can ameliorate that danger.

The purpose of this thread is stated in the subject line: How does a wet cloth really help (scientifically) to survive an airplane crash?

To be clear here, I'd be *glad* to believe that a wet cloth helps save your life by filtering out particles, but it's hard to believe that supposition when not a single one of us (me included) can find a single reliable industry reference that says so.

[Ann Marie Brest]

You're joking right?

We're talking about an airplane crash cabin fire.

And, you're saying all our conclusions are wrong because your aunt got cancer 30 years after moving downwind from a factory?

I apologize, but I don't get the connection at all.