How could the top of an airplane fuslage be on fire without exploding?

[Moose_Ryder]

Everybody seen the crashed 777 picture right? Just weird, because I always thought the fuel would be stored beneath the airframe and inside the wing.

How did the fuel get "up there"?

 

[Dr Transport]

electrical fire, there is plenty of insulation and wiring up in the top of the fuselage, along with everyone's luggage that can burn.

 

[Astronuc]

electrical fire, there is plenty of insulation and wiring up in the top of the fuselage, along with everyone's luggage that can burn.

I was thinking of all the laptops that burned up. It would be a great ordeal if my laptop(s) were destroyed - even with them backed up.

 

[Borg]

There wasn't any fuel up there. That's just where fire burned through the cabin.

Here's one of the first pictures taken by one of the passengers. There's a fire that's started but it's not on the top.

 

[turbo]

Plenty of fuel in the top of an airliner, including foam and plastic head-liners. Lots of smoke from plastic and once it get going, it burns hot.

 

[Borg]

Plenty of fuel in the top of an airliner, including foam and plastic head-liners. Lots of smoke from plastic and once it get going, it burns hot.

No disagreement there. The OP seemed to think that jet fuel is stored up there. That's definitely not the case.

 

[D H]

Fuel is however stored below the passengers in a 777-200ER, which was the type of plane that crashed. The 777-200ER has a 26,100 gallon center fuel tank that spans the two wings.

http://www.boeing.com/assets/pdf/commercial/airports/arff/arff777.pdf

 

[edward]

Fuel is however stored below the passengers in a 777-200ER, which was the type of plane that crashed. The 777-200ER has a 26,100 gallon center fuel tank that spans the two wings.

http://www.boeing.com/assets/pdf/commercial/airports/arff/arff777.pdf

Presuming that the landing gear was down and locked when the plane pancaked the ground, the gear should have ended up being pushed into the fuel tank. ?? It seems to me there would have been more fire lower down and there wasn't.

Edit. OK so the tail, landing gear and one engine were ripped off. In photos the other engine appears to be off and laying slightly in front of the wing.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/07/us/san-francisco-plane-crash.html?src=mv&_r=0

 

[Borg]

Presuming that the landing gear was down and locked when the plane pancaked the ground, the gear should have ended up being pushed into the fuel tank. ?? It seems to me there would have been more fire lower down and there wasn't.

Edit. OK so the tail, landing gear and one engine were ripped off. In photos the other engine appears to be off and laying slightly in front of the wing.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/07/us/san-francisco-plane-crash.html?src=mv&_r=0

DH's pdf shows the fuel tanks located in the forward half of the wing in the fuselage area on page 1 and the landing gear is located just behind that (page 10).

Two reasons that I can think of for the reduced initial fire. Since it was at the end of the flight, there wouldn't be as much fuel remaining on the aircraft. Plus, the video that was released showed a huge cloud of dust get kicked up as it skidded off the runway. The dust probably acted as a fire suppressant. From jtbell's link in the other thread: http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/vi...red-hayes.html

Edit: The video link seems to be no good anymore. Try this one: http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/us/2013/07/07/vo-plane-sf-plane-crash-on-cam.courtesy-fred-hayes.html