Few questions, am flying to Europe in a few days

[nervousflyer]

Hello!

I leave for Europe in 5 days and am having spurts of extreme anxiety followed by periods when I am not worrying that much, but a few questions, albiet random ones, have been plaguing me and I think *hope* some answers will help the scenarios from playing over and over in my head.

1- I've been thinking about how easy it would be for someone to start a fire on board. All a terrorrist or crazy person would need is a lighter and 3 oz of gasoline or even perfume or something to create a mini explosion of fire. :eek: This would all be allowed on the plane (if it was gasoline, it would just have to be diguised).

What kind of anti fire devices are on board and would they be able to put out a fire in time before ruining the plane or everyone burning (mid air i mean)?

2- What happens if wheels don't deploy on landing and you are too close to the ground to pull up again? Doesn't this automatically start a fire, landing without wheels?

3-How easy is it for maintainence to sabotage a plane if they wanted to? Is there always more than one person working on the plane at a time? Is it true that ground staff don't get security checked? They could put ANYTHING in the luggage hold!!!! :cry:

I really hope there are answers to these things because i keep picturing really awful scenarios.

Thanks soo much.

[Falcon]

No problem that is what we are here for.

1) Unobserved is difficult, toilets are fitted with smoke detectors and automatic extinguishers. Crew are trained and we have fiore fighting equipment on board. To avoid people secreting petrol on board we have these pain in the butt security measures which only allows you to take liquids on board if you bought them airside. If any crew member caught a wiff of petrol all hell would break loose. It is not a smell that occurs naturally in aircraft so we know that something is not right.

2) The undercarriage is deployed well before we get close to the ground so if it doesnt deploy a goaround can be iniated in good time. The relevant checks can be performed and the airport warned so they can get their procedures done.

3) They could but no one individual can get away with it. Multiple people cross check each procedure. Engineers are security checked and odd balls stick out in any office.