[icehole]

Originally Posted by William May ↗

No, in the pic she's peeking out the rear window, so she was probably sitting in the rear seat.

I think they are in such good shape because either:

A. They ran out of fuel, so there was not much of a fire.

B. When they crashed, they went through trees, which ripped the wings off. Normally, light aircraft have the fuel tanks in the inboard end of each wing, right next to the fuselage. I don't see any wings in the wreckage photos, so they must have been torn off, which would leave only a cup or so of gasoline in the plumbing from the wings down to the engine. This would explain the small burned area. Interior aircraft parts are usually self-extinguishing, including the carpeting, the upholstery, and the plastic panels. It WILL burn if there is a flame against it, but if the flame is removed, the fire on the interior materials will self-extinguish. When Learjet put in their custom interiors, every material used, and the final assembly of those materials, had to be flame tested and a report for everything went with the aircraft when it was delivered. The burn lab at the Lear factory in Tucson was always busy. All aircraft manufacturers since the 1970's have used self-extinguishing materials on all aircraft interiors. Even when a current aircraft owner takes out his old ratty interior that was installed in 1962, and installs a new interior kit, they get a burn certificate with the new kit, to put in the logbook with the interior redo information.

self-extinguishing materials, now that's interesting

[MikeyP]

Colombians......
I was married to one. Cocaine, coffee, & cutlery .... that's all we had in common....

[icehole]

Originally Posted by icehole ↗

self-extinguishing materials, now that's interesting

why not instead, a fireproof material

[William May]

Originally Posted by icehole ↗

why not instead, a fireproof material

The "self-extinguishing" requirement arose out of some crashes in the early 1970's, where the crash was survivable, but people died from the fire and smoke inhalation. The FAA finally made it a requirement that all materials used in aircraft furnishings, must be AT LEAST self-extinguishing. Making everything fireproof would mean a very austere cabin, no carpeting or soundproofing, and a lot of noise, what with everything being made of stainless steel. Even steel is not fireproof. If you want to see a demo of this, take some steel wool with a pliers, set it on fire, and blow on it. All you are burning is plain steel, but it burns as if it has got gasoline on it. So "fireproof" was considered beyond achievability, but self-extinguishing was just a matter of using chemical coatings to make the material self extinguishing. For the molded plastic side panels like they use on airliners, the material is blended into the plastic when it is made, and if there is a fire, the plastic itself releases the extinguishing agent as it is burned by a local flame.
But when Boeing builds an airliner, all the interior parts are very carefully engineered and tested to insure they self-extinguish after being subjected to flames.
At Learjet, customers could pick out virtually ANYTHING they could imagine or could think of. Once they picked out all the features of their custom interior, it was the problem of the engineers to come up with a flame control solution that would make everything self-extinguishing. They not only had to test and demonstrate that each particular item of interior use would pass a burn test, but that ALL of the items combined would ALSO pass a burn test as a completed assembly. These tests were the biggest stumbling blocks to completing an interior on a customer airplane, and many engineers spend sleepless nights trying to figure out how to meet the burn standards and get a successful test out the interior design they were given.
If you have ever picked out a brand new car, and ordered it the way you wanted it, multiply that by 10,000 for a Learjet. There were HUNDREDS of sample books, with wood, leather, fabric, animal skins, etc, etc that people would flip through while deciding what they wanted. Most all of them already had burn tests done, so they were known to be successful for use in a Learjet, but there was always the odd person who wanted to go the extra mile.
(Helen Dow Whiting, of the Dow Chemical family, actually brought in a 400 lb. boulder strapped to the seat rails of her older aircraft, so the interior specialists could get the color duplicated perfectly for the interior fabric of her new Learjet.) There were no lengths to which they were not prepared to go, to get what they very specifically wanted for their aircraft.

Peter Dooney, of the "Dooney and Bourke" purse company, wanted a color scheme that WOULD NOT be stolen and used by someone else, as had happened to a few of his previous designs on aircraft he had had painted. He came up with a custom paint scheme design, and it took our paint shop in Tucson (certainly one of the best paint shops in the entire WORLD) 6 weeks, using laser beams, to lay out the star pattern that he had selected, which was then painted over his special striping pattern, with the stars being painted in iridescent gold metallic. The aircraft was absolutely breathtaking when finished. His interior was very modest in comparison, but it was also fire tested before it could be installed in the aircraft.

Life is tough if you are really wealthy, let me tell you!!!

[icehole]

Originally Posted by William May ↗

The "self-extinguishing" requirement arose out of some crashes in the early 1970's, where the crash was survivable, but people died from the fire and smoke inhalation. The FAA finally made it a requirement that all materials used in aircraft furnishings, must be AT LEAST self-extinguishing. Making everything fireproof would mean a very austere cabin, no carpeting or soundproofing, and a lot of noise, what with everything being made of stainless steel. Even steel is not fireproof. If you want to see a demo of this, take some steel wool with a pliers, set it on fire, and blow on it. All you are burning is plain steel, but it burns as if it has got gasoline on it. So "fireproof" was considered beyond achievability, but self-extinguishing was just a matter of using chemical coatings to make the material self extinguishing. For the molded plastic side panels like they use on airliners, the material is blended into the plastic when it is made, and if there is a fire, the plastic itself releases the extinguishing agent as it is burned by a local flame.
But when Boeing builds an airliner, all the interior parts are very carefully engineered and tested to insure they self-extinguish after being subjected to flames.
At Learjet, customers could pick out virtually ANYTHING they could imagine or could think of. Once they picked out all the features of their custom interior, it was the problem of the engineers to come up with a flame control solution that would make everything self-extinguishing. They not only had to test and demonstrate that each particular item of interior use would pass a burn test, but that ALL of the items combined would ALSO pass a burn test as a completed assembly. These tests were the biggest stumbling blocks to completing an interior on a customer airplane, and many engineers spend sleepless nights trying to figure out how to meet the burn standards and get a successful test out the interior design they were given.
If you have ever picked out a brand new car, and ordered it the way you wanted it, multiply that by 10,000 for a Learjet. There were HUNDREDS of sample books, with wood, leather, fabric, animal skins, etc, etc that people would flip through while deciding what they wanted. Most all of them already had burn tests done, so they were known to be successful for use in a Learjet, but there was always the odd person who wanted to go the extra mile.
(Helen Dow Whiting, of the Dow Chemical family, actually brought in a 400 lb. boulder strapped to the seat rails of her older aircraft, so the interior specialists could get the color duplicated perfectly for the interior fabric of her new Learjet.) There were no lengths to which they were not prepared to go, to get what they very specifically wanted for their aircraft.

Peter Dooney, of the "Dooney and Bourke" purse company, wanted a color scheme that WOULD NOT be stolen and used by someone else, as had happened to a few of his previous designs on aircraft he had had painted. He came up with a custom paint scheme design, and it took our paint shop in Tucson (certainly one of the best paint shops in the entire WORLD) 6 weeks, using laser beams, to lay out the star pattern that he had selected, which was then painted over his special striping pattern, with the stars being painted in iridescent gold metallic. The aircraft was absolutely breathtaking when finished. His interior was very modest in comparison, but it was also fire tested before it could be installed in the aircraft.

Life is tough if you are really wealthy, let me tell you!!!

wow, it's always nice to get to know something new like this
Thank you!!