Hercules brakes catch fire

The following is a rough translation from an Afrikaans article that appeared in Beeld:

One of the SAAFs C-130 Hercules aircraft caused drama on Friday at Johannesburg International Airport when the brakes caught fire. The aircraft came to a stop on one of the runways amid a cloud of smoke. Neither Denel nor the SAAF wanted to comment on the incident. Beeld (newspaper) is led to believe that negligence could be the cause.

The aircraft was at Denel for upgrade. Three of the aircraft were upgraded at Marshalls, UK, and the rest were subcontracted to Denel. Fridays' aircraft was the second last to be done. A particular procedure has to be followed to "set" the brakes. This involves taxiing the aircraft slowly and braking lightly. The process then involves taxiing faster, with the brakes having to work harder. The last procedure is when the aircraft performs a full landing and executes an emergency stop in order to ascertain if everything is functioning correctly.

At about 11:30 on Friday, one of Marshalls test pilots was in control of the test flight. Beeld is led to believe that the pilot ignored several warnings from the Denel Aviation control tower that they were taxiing too fast and braking too hard. The warnings fell on deaf ears. The brakes then caught fire. According to an eyewitness, the brakes were glowing red and flames were coming out of the wheel well.

Ms Jaqui O'Sullivan, spokesperson for the Airports Company of South Africa (ACSA), told Rajaa Azzakani that only the fuselage of the aircraft was damaged. Altogether, five crew, including the Marshall's pilot, were in the aircraft at the time of the incident. "No-one was injured. Our fire service sprung into action to put the fire out. The fire was put out within minutes. The aircraft stood on the runway for another 30 minutes before it could be towed to the Denel Aviation workshops."

According to O'Sullivan, no other flights were disrupted.