UPS 6, Dubai, 3 September 2010

On 3 September 2010, UPS Airlines Flight 6 — a Boeing 747-44AF, registration N571UP — suffered an in-flight cargo fire shortly after departing Dubai for Cologne. Both crew members died.

The cargo

The aircraft was carrying more than 81,000 lithium batteries along with other combustible material.

What happened

Fire broke out in the cargo hold and smoke flooded the cockpit within minutes. That is the detail that made this accident unsurvivable.

Captain Douglas Lampe lost consciousness from hypoxia. First Officer Matthew Bell was left flying an aircraft whose instruments he could not see through the smoke, using radio relay from another aircraft for guidance. The fire also destroyed elevator control, leaving the aircraft unable to be flown accurately in pitch.

It came down near Dubai.

Why smoke, not flame, was the killer

A main-deck freighter fire is a different problem from a fire in a passenger aircraft’s belly hold, as the Asiana 991 page sets out. But UPS 6 exposed something more specific: the flight deck of a freighter is not sealed from the main deck the way a passenger cabin is, and once smoke enters it the crew cannot see the instruments.

Lithium cells in thermal runaway supply their own oxidiser, so conventional suppression — which works by displacing oxygen — does not reliably stop them.

What changed

Boeing revised the 747-400F fire checklists, requiring that at least one of the three air conditioning systems be left running during a cargo fire, specifically to keep smoke from accumulating on the flight deck. That is a direct, concrete change traceable to this accident.

The FAA restricted lithium batteries on passenger aircraft and issued cargo alerts. Together with Asiana 991 the following year, this accident pushed ICAO to begin work in 2012 on new standards for carrying lithium batteries by air — rules that have tightened repeatedly since, covering quantity, state of charge, packaging and segregation.

It also reopened a debate that has not fully settled: whether freighter crews should have smoke hoods and vision assurance equipment as standard, and whether main-deck holds need active fire suppression rather than detection alone.

Related

• Asiana 991 — the same problem a year later
• How 747 freight works
• The 747-400F