Assessing Environmental and Health Impact: Fires in Civil Aircraft

The environment is being polluted by many industrial factors these days. One of the most polluting factors is fires due to their negative impact on the nature, atmosphere and human health. The article is dedicated to civil aircraft fires. The analysis herein focuses on the examination of materials, mostly composites, and their behaviour during fires in confined spaces, i.e. inside civil aircraft. Throughout the above analysis, individual structural materials have been categorised by their physical and chemical properties. In order to test the flammability of individual materials, the standard ISO 5660-1:2002 has been used (ISO – International Organization for Standardization). The tests of composites are a part of the project “Simulation of Intervention in Air Accidents”. The outputs have revealed the processes that significantly influence the environment and the health of passengers that could potentially be inside the plane. Thanks to the analysis of the processes happening during fires and to the interpretation of their impact on the environment and people’s health, it has been possible to define fire brigade reaction times and improve the effectiveness of its operations related to plane fires and, subsequently, minimise the impacts of fires on the environment and, most importantly, on human health. At the same time, the statistical significance of the outputs has been examined.