IMPORTANT: Fire Extinguisher leaked today :-(

I bought a H3R Halon Fire Extinguisher Model: RT A600 while at Sun-n-Fun. Today my plane was sitting outside (about 92 degrees OAT) at a flyin and when I opened the canopy and leaned in to move something I heard something and found that my extinguisher was leaking around the top. I looked it over good and saw that an o-ring had blown out in a small area under the top. The label says to store between -40 and 120. I would guess that it might have gone over 120 inside.

Has anyone else had this happen to them? Has anyone got one in their plane that gets hot and have not had a problem with it?

If you do have one and have not checked it lately take it out of the clamp and make sure it has not leaked out. There was no residue, if I had not heard it I would have never know it leaked. It is now very light and I guess empty.

I'll email the company it has a 5 yr. warranty.
They replaced it with a Model A344T which is still good today 04JUL19

Me too...

I had the same thing happen, and it wasn't even a hot day. The manufacturer replaced the extinguisher on warranty with no argument.

This was actually the second malfunction I've had; the first one involved the entire plastic top of the extinguisher breaking off for no obvious reason (no leakage). Despite their price these are not high quality units.

Yep, me too. It was just sitting on a shelf in my hangar. I went to install it in the airplane and noticed it was much lighter than when it was new. Also replaced under warranty.

Heinrich Gerhardt

I recently found mine empty also.

replacement

The top came off of mine after 3 years and the company replaced the unit at no charge.

This is scary! Everyone check your extinguishers.

Thanks for bringing this up. If you had not noticed, you could have had a very unpleasant surprise if/when you needed the extinguisher. Also, leaking halon can be detrimental to your health as it does deplete oxygen.

EVERYONE: Please check your extinguishers TODAY, and OFTEN!

halons

Have seen this device fail once on a boat. I selected a beefier model, the A344. Hefty metal construction, but a bit heavier. http://store.wagaero.com/product_info.php?products_id=12281

Recommended, and installed in my 9A

All the best,
Chris

Mine leaked out over several years. I replaced it and now weigh it at every annual to verify that it is still full. The label states what is acceptable.

Karl

Now in Sandpoint, ID.

Halon

I've always been leary of Halon extinguishers in cockpits of aircraft. It probably goes back to my marine days (as in boats) when as a USPS (US Power Sqdrn) member we taught public boating. Halon was and still is used as a very effective fuel fire extinguishing system, as it imediately neutralizes oxygen. But we never ever used it in confined cabin areas where oxygen breathing creatures gathered. Then when I took up flying, I was amazed at the number of small aircraft with small Halon extinguishers in the cockpits.

Was what I learned an old wifes' tale or what? Someone who really knows what their talking about should join in on this discussion. "What sayeth guys".

The Halon does not "deplete" the oxygen in the air around it - at least not in the sense that it "consumes" it - it displaces the oxygen by physically shoving the air aside to make room for the halon coming out of the bottle under pressure. As such, if you discharge one in a closed cockpit, you will now have a cockpit mostly full of Halon and not air. Halon does not contain oxygen - so the fire will go out, and sooner or later you will too. At low altitudes (or on the ground) you will still have about 2 minutes of useful consciousness after discharge, and as any high-altitude cruising pilot can tell you, we have lots of leaks in our airplanes - the Halon will quickly be diffused with incoming air, especially if you have vents open or crack the canopy.

At ANY altitude, if you have supplemental oxygen on board, use that and crank the regulator wide open and you'll be fine for any period of time as long as the O2 is flowing. Halon is not immediately toxic in and of itself - it's simply the oxygen displacement that makes it dangerous.

My 2 cents - blow the whole bottle in the cockpit with all ventilation closed - wait a good 30 seconds to make sure the fire is out (while putting on your O2) - then vent with everything you've got.

airguy

So that's why they call you "airguy" Good post! and thanks for that

Greg covered the topic very well, and th only thing that I will add is that as a volunteer firefighter for 25 years, I have never seen any extinguisher work as quickly on a fire as Halon. If you give a fire a chance to get going, all bets are off, so use it, and use it quickly. Your choices are basically Dry Chem, CO2, and Halon. Dry Chem makes a horrendous, corrosive and toxic mess. CO2 extinguishers are pretty heavy. Halon is light and very effective.

We use Halon in the Space Shuttle cabin, both in the built in system and the hand-helds. Procedurally, if a bottle is discharged, we put everyone on O2 masks fairly quickly (but not in a panic), then we do a cabin purge (open up a leak path, and resupply from stored gas - the cabin doesn't evacuate, we hold pressure with a controlled leak both in and out). Halon worries me a LOT LESS than the fire, you can be sure of that!

I carry Halon in my plane, and will fire it under the panel as soon as I suspect a fire. I'll then worry about ventilation.

Paul

Why fire extinguishers leak

I have rebuilt 1000's of fire ext. of all kinds. The O-ring cannot unseat unless the valvebody wasn't tightened properly or it is a low quality design. If the valve to ext. body is designed right there is zero clearance and no O-ring can creep out. At the nuclear plant I work at they insisted on putting a Halon outside on the sunny side of a bldg., it leaked off every year. They ask me why and I told them they were not intended for that kind of service,put it inside and problem solved. Why does it leak? I don't know, dry chem won't do it even in the heat, but it is heat related for Halon. Plastic valved extinguishers are of the lowest quality. Got one in your kitchen fine you can run out of your house but for an airplane get one with a brass or aluminum valve, there rebuildable too and I don't know of anyone rebuilding a plastic one. Our procedures at work are to destroy any plastic one found,there referred to as junk, sorry. Amerex is the best ext. over the years I've seen, some good ones are not made any more like General it was a good one too. Main thing is it's got to be metal !!!! Don't know about the space program they might special order there own design. I've been in computer room Halon dumps for concentration testing and one engineer stayed for several minutes taking readings,I was there for at less one minute. I wouldn't vent for a couple minutes,the plane just ain't that tight, you just had a fire and they comeback,did you blow the whole bottle? Keep the concentration high until you know its out. Am I an expert on fire extinguishers? Nah, but this is what I do know about em. Metal [brand name]is high quality,plastic is low quality. Gene

STINGRAY said:

So that's why they call you "airguy" Good post! and thanks for that

Click to expand...

Actually, I got that nickname from my high-pressure compressed air business, I handle systems up to 10,000 psi. Most of my customers just referred to me as "The Airguy" and it stuck.

feather-light Halon bottle

Mine is mounted on the back of the pilot seat(out of direct sun). But you guys all know what happened. I do not know when it leaked out but I went to check the bottle and it was real light......empty. What is the fix?

Many years ago I took a class on "Special Fires", put on by the Navy, which concentrated AFFF, and its use on flammable liquids, and the then somewhat new realm of Halon extinguishers, which were mainly used on hi dollar electronics like computers.

This was where I was first introduced to the concept of the "fire tetrahedron", which was an up dated model of fire chemistry that included an explanation of how Halon worked.

Most folks know of the age old "Fire Triangle" of fuel, heat, and oxygen. The tetrahedron model adds a fourth component-----the chemical reaction.

Here is a good explanation of what each part is, and how it is used to control the fire. Read down to the "chemical reaction" section.

Halon neither displaces, nor absorbs the oxygen, it just stops the chemical reaction between the oxygen and the fuel.

Halon is now out of favor, as it has some nasty effects on the ozone layer.

We were taught to always use our SCBA's when using Halon.

Got email back from the company!

I got an email from the company and they said no problem with getting another under warranty. I also asked about getting a A344T model in place of the RTA600, the A344T has a metal top rather than the RTA600 which has the plastic top. They said to just include a letter with that request and they would do that.

I also noticed that Wick's Aircraft where I bought mine has since stopped selling the RTA600 and other plastic top extinguishers.

Checked my halon bottle in my plane today after seeing this thread. Completely empty. Was about three yrs old, seems like last annual it was still full. Will have to buy a new one.

empty extinguisher?

Check extinguisher full/sealed/secured/unstowable is on my pre-flight checklist.

I got my new extinguisher!

Well the warranty exchange worked great! I turned in my defective RT A600 for a new A344T. It weights more but I believe this one will be a better extinguisher, quality wise.

If yours has leaked remember it might still be covered under warrenty.

Bob raises some good points. Slowing down fires, even it is already in the cockpit is possible and helpful with the use of fire resistant materials. Material on or near the aft side of the firewall can catch fire just from the heat of a fire forward of the firewall. That is called auto ignition. Fires impinging into the cockpit, such as from the wing root area can be slowed. Also, if you do crash, anything that slows the spread of flames can make a difference in the degree of injury. One of our risks is a fuel fed fire in the cockpit. If you get the fuel source shut off, you don?t want a remaining fire fed by the materials. In any give case, the type of material may or may not make a difference, but you can increase your protection if you are so inclined.

I would suggest that halon is safe for use in flight. The safety recommendation letter noted below contains several accounts in which flight crews were reluctant to use halon. The one recommendation from the letter gets to the point. As Paul also notes, halon is very helpful with little risk to the occupant. Although the letter refers to a bottle discharged inside a transport category fuselage, I believe our well ventilated cockpits and small bottles are equally safe.

Recommendation: A-01-087
The NTSB recommends that the Federal Aviation Administration: Issue a flight standards handbook bulletin to principal operations inspectors to ensure that air carrier training programs explain the properties of Halon and emphasize that the potential harmful effects on passengers and crew are negligible when compared to the safety benefits achieved by fighting in-flight fires aggressively

For the full letter, some case examples, and a discussion of the use of halon, follow the link. The discussion of the effects of halon start on page 8.

http://www.ntsb.gov/Recs/letters/2001/A01_83_87.pdf

No expert here at all, but in my chemical manufacturing career / past-life we practiced putting out gas/oil mix fires with several methods. Dry-chem extinguishers were a "whoosh" and the fire was out. CO2 extinguishers were a "whooooosh" and the fire was out. Halon was a ?puff? and the fire was extinguished. Water was something else. Engulf the flames in a conical fan of water to deprive the source of oxygen and maybe the fire would go out. Hit the combustible liquid with the water stream and create a splash of flammable material and you got a fireball of flame. I?ll get a Halon extinguisher for sure but I do appreciate the comments here about the quality of the devices.