Accident investigators have traced a fire that destroyed a UPS Boeing 747 in the United Arab Emirates in 2010 to the lithium batteries being carried in the cargo hold. Unless something is done to prevent similar disasters, the FAA now says such crashes are all but inevitable in the future.
A 322-page report issued by the UAE’s General Civil Aviation Authority determined that heat from the fire disabled the crew’s oxygen system and that smoke filled the cockpit within three minutes of the first warning, obscuring the pilots’ view. Both crew members were killed when the 747-44AF crashed on Sept. 3, 2010, near Dubai.
