Luton Airport Car Park Fire

Status
Not open for further replies.
Vixen said:
Update today: Luton Car Park to be demolished.

BBC

One wonders what will be done about Car Park no. 1, as that is supposedly where all the EV chargers are located. Correlation with charging and EV fires. But otherwise, probably the same design as the doomed no. 2 car park.
Click to expand...


According to the story you link:
Neil Thompson, operations director at the airport, said: "Regrettably, I can now confirm that, due to the extent of the structural damage, the car park will need to be fully demolished."
Click to expand...


Why would one wonder about Car Park No. 1? How much structural damage did it sustain in the fire?
 
Steve said:
I suspect there are different standards for fire fighting on ships. My experience is mainly with buildings. And you are quite correct that water is not the first choice for extinguishing a Class B oil fire, and conventional sprinklers will not extinguish one. But water does have a cooling effect and mitigates the spread of heat to other areas.
Click to expand...

It keeps the heat from permeating the ceiling?
 
Vixen said:
It is all very well saying it is 'accidental' but it may not necessarily be so, given the Middle East conflict.
Click to expand...


Incidentally, you have failed to address this. Can you explain how the Middle East conflict suggests that the fire may not have been accidental?
 
phiwum said:
They airlifted the parts for a fire engine onto the roof and then constructed it there.
Click to expand...

Entirely possible as a fire engine is made up of parts which are put together, here is a diagram of a fire engine showing it is made of parts which proves it was a likely, if not certain scenario.:




Bing create: a technical drawing of a fire engine
 
Mojo said:
Incidentally, you have failed to address this. Can you explain how the Middle East conflict suggests that the fire may not have been accidental?
Click to expand...

Have you not seen there are fires in Gazza and damaged buildings? Obviously Israel will try to claim they are caused by "diesel cars that spontaneously burst into flames and destroy concrete buildings" and they will point to Luton to show this is a common occurring event.
 
Vixen said:
Sorry, but hybrid vehicles do have disconnection management systems. Hence the debate on the meaning of the 'culprit' car's tail lights being on because if a hybrid, that doesn't necessarily mean the driver left the engine on.
Click to expand...

What is this nonsense? You can leave any car's tail lights on without the engine running. What point do you imagine you are making?
 
Vixen said:
... there is nothing to prevent a diesel car from also being a mild hybrid or a plug-in hybrid as the diesel will be the majority power of the car. So he is not lying there, either.
Click to expand...

Like a dog to its vomit, you have returned to accusing the chief fire officer of deliberately deceiving the public to reduce their perception of fire risk in hybrids. Can you see how insane that sounds?

Why would a senior fire officer deceive to falsely play down a fire risk, rather than do the opposite and call for a wider investigation into whether this model had a fault or if the whole type presents a new risk?
 
phiwum said:
If, indeed, he has good evidence right now that it's a diesel hybrid then this statement is grossly misleading at best and is reasonably called a lie. When we say something is a diesel vehicle, we mean internal combustion. We never call a diesel hybrid anything but a diesel hybrid.

If he knows it's a hybrid, such careful parsing of words won't evade claims of dishonesty. Especially not since, as I hear, most people are too stupid to even understand terms like "pending final verification".



See above.



None of these purported reasons change my analysis. If the facts come out in mere months, then the hiding of information will have done no good at all. Indeed, it will only harm the authority of the fire brigade, because people will not trust them nearly so readily in the future.



If you know it's an EV, then it is definitely a lie to say you believe it's a diesel. If you know it's a hybrid, then it's close enough to a lie that the difference is inconsequential. You are knowingly encouraging your audience to conclude it's a strictly internal combustion engine when you know damned well it's not.



You've said most people can't understand caveats like "pending verification". This is why, you claim, that the web page can't be trusted -- they simplified the text because people don't know what such caveats mean. So how then can the same caveat protect ones reputation when most people can't understand it?

This is especially a problem since a number of layfolk have claimed it's an EV or Hybrid from the start. In that case, the brigade looks utterly dishonest or incompetent, since even the untrained observer recognized the real source.

So, no, if it turns out to be a hybrid, then the reputation of the fire brigade will certainly and appropriately suffer.

And, even supposing this weren't the case, what advantage is there to hiding the truth until the official report comes out? How does this benefit the brigade or whoever is supposed to be interested? Such reports don't take forever. As I said, the Liverpool report was a mere five months after the event (not two years as I think you've suggested).



If they never know for sure, then so be it. I kinda doubt that they would find no evidence of a lithium battery, but I don't know much. In that case, they haven't been dishonest. But that's not the case we've been discussing. We've been discussing a case that is so clear and easy to recognize that folks online can identify the hallmarks of a lithium battery just by watching some amateur videos online and hence the caveat of the chief is intended to deceive.
Click to expand...


Bearing in mind Mr. Hopkinson made his statement whilst the building was still burning - 11 Oct 2023 - as of that stage all he will have had would be the CCTV image and possibly the ANPR as each vehicle drives in. Although the CCTV might show a certain car on fire, it may not necessarily be the first car. Likewise, the driver may not have been spoken to yet, either. So, no, he would not have been lying. There has been no update since then.

So not a case of lying but more a case of a perceived lack of transparency, which is no surprise given the incident needs to be investigated and that takes time.

Re social media many of the people making claims it didn't look like a diesel fire claim to be firemen of long service or ex-firemen or their mate's dad works at Luton airport. Yes, a lot of this will be ******** but you only have to note the lack of transparency over the ma make and model of the car in question to understand that Hopkinson was gagged - for whatever reason, noble or legal - from stating it was a Range Rover. This indicates to me classic brand reputation limitation crisis management. Being of a cynical bent, it would not surprise me if Prime Minister Rishi Sunak got Home Secretary Suella Bravermann to put pressure on the police and fire brigade to avoid naming Jaguar Land Rover, given the recent £4bn deal handed to Tata who own JLR. The last thing the government needed was a public scare about Range Rover or hybrid cars (and statistics show fires are common in hybrids). So yeah, definitely a gag in place there.

On the one hand we had a view of the vehicle from the back supposedly taken by another driver nearby and this is the one published widely but not verified by any official source (headlines: 'Could this be the car?'). Several days later, an new X account or was it Instagram or similar, claiming to show a view from the front, which I don't think the national press have published. This claims to show a number plate E10 EFL and the person who provided it claims to have checked with DVLA to show it is a Range Rover Sport 2014. But this could be a photoshop and not authentic at all. The first photo as widely published, seems to actually show a short form number plat, with just two to four characters and is hard to decipher.

What has arisen from this is a joke doing the rounds that the driver must have been some kind of 'toff' to have spent a large sum of money on a personalised number plate, and of course, Range Rover, is the vehicle of choice for the Royal Family. Could the culprit be Prince Andrew, haha, as if he'd drive himself to an airport and Luton, at that. Or perhaps a flashy young footballer is the other joke. One urban myth already developed is that the driver was a self-important business man who left the car ablaze, ran into the nearby airport saying had an urgent flight to catch and could someone sort out the car. He was then arrested, the joke goes, on his return from this important meeting.


So a lack of transparency and information is how wild rumours start.

In addition, in he UK a hybrid would not be referred to as an EV, as the specs are quite different.

From the Land Rover web page:

RANGE ROVER ELECTRIC HYBRID - PLUG IN

Peerless refinement and luxury.



- EV range up to 121 km (75 miles)‡ ††

- CO2 from 16 g/km††
Click to expand...


MEV - Mild Hybrid:

RANGE ROVER MHEV

The Range Rover leads by example with breath-taking modernity, peerless refinement and leading Land Rover capability.



- CO2 from 197 g/km††
Click to expand...
https://www.landrover.com/electric/range.html

Well, its webpage isn't very informative but if it was a Range Rover Evoque and not a Sport then there is a high chance it was part of a recall due to a fault in recent years.

ISTM that by 'arresting a 30-year-old man as a precaution,' it takes the heat (so to speak) off Range Rover the brand and a cynic might wonder if that is the aim. Think about it. The guy is on bail (not in custody so there is no time limit to charge him) suspected of 'Criminal Damage'. Now criminal damage can be a very trivial offence. It might no refer to the driver at all, although that will be the implication of the released news. It could be the early reported individual said to have tried to break in to the car park to retrieve some personal belongings. Perhaps he kicked down a gate or something. If it was the driver - hence the headline news - how is it criminal damage as for it to be criminal damage there has to be mens rea. If the guy had to leap out off the car because of an inherent fault in that car model, how has he shown intent to cause criminal damage if it was 'accidental' as also claimed by Mr. Hopkinson in his early press statement? So to put this guy under arrest as 'a precaution' makes people wonder what the game is.

Lastly, it is far too soon to decide the cause or origin of the accident. If you listen to this eye witness here, he describes quite a vivid scene of a flame shooter flying across the top deck and all the cars lighting up together.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0gkqs6c
 
Mojo said:
Why would the police be concerned about this?
Click to expand...

In this type of incident the police would liaise with the regional fire brigade, which has the ultimate responsibility of bringing out the official fire report. As blame apportioning is involved then of course the police are involved at an early stage.
 
Vixen said:
Bearing in mind Mr. Hopkinson made his statement whilst the building was still burning - 11 Oct 2023 - as of that stage all he will have had would be the CCTV image and possibly the ANPR as each vehicle drives in. Although the CCTV might show a certain car on fire, it may not necessarily be the first car. Likewise, the driver may not have been spoken to yet, either. So, no, he would not have been lying. There has been no update since then.

So not a case of lying but more a case of a perceived lack of transparency, which is no surprise given the incident needs to be investigated and that takes time.

Re social media many of the people making claims it didn't look like a diesel fire claim to be firemen of long service or ex-firemen or their mate's dad works at Luton airport. Yes, a lot of this will be ******** but you only have to note the lack of transparency over the ma make and model of the car in question to understand that Hopkinson was gagged - for whatever reason, noble or legal - from stating it was a Range Rover. This indicates to me classic brand reputation limitation crisis management. Being of a cynical bent, it would not surprise me if Prime Minister Rishi Sunak got Home Secretary Suella Bravermann to put pressure on the police and fire brigade to avoid naming Jaguar Land Rover, given the recent £4bn deal handed to Tata who own JLR. The last thing the government needed was a public scare about Range Rover or hybrid cars (and statistics show fires are common in hybrids). So yeah, definitely a gag in place there.

On the one hand we had a view of the vehicle from the back supposedly taken by another driver nearby and this is the one published widely but not verified by any official source (headlines: 'Could this be the car?'). Several days later, an new X account or was it Instagram or similar, claiming to show a view from the front, which I don't think the national press have published. This claims to show a number plate E10 EFL and the person who provided it claims to have checked with DVLA to show it is a Range Rover Sport 2014. But this could be a photoshop and not authentic at all. The first photo as widely published, seems to actually show a short form number plat, with just two to four characters and is hard to decipher.

What has arisen from this is a joke doing the rounds that the driver must have been some kind of 'toff' to have spent a large sum of money on a personalised number plate, and of course, Range Rover, is the vehicle of choice for the Royal Family. Could the culprit be Prince Andrew, haha, as if he'd drive himself to an airport and Luton, at that. Or perhaps a flashy young footballer is the other joke. One urban myth already developed is that the driver was a self-important business man who left the car ablaze, ran into the nearby airport saying had an urgent flight to catch and could someone sort out the car. He was then arrested, the joke goes, on his return from this important meeting.


So a lack of transparency and information is how wild rumours start.

In addition, in he UK a hybrid would not be referred to as an EV, as the specs are quite different.

From the Land Rover web page:




MEV - Mild Hybrid:

https://www.landrover.com/electric/range.html

Well, its webpage isn't very informative but if it was a Range Rover Evoque and not a Sport then there is a high chance it was part of a recall due to a fault in recent years.

ISTM that by 'arresting a 30-year-old man as a precaution,' it takes the heat (so to speak) off Range Rover the brand and a cynic might wonder if that is the aim. Think about it. The guy is on bail (not in custody so there is no time limit to charge him) suspected of 'Criminal Damage'. Now criminal damage can be a very trivial offence. It might no refer to the driver at all, although that will be the implication of the released news. It could be the early reported individual said to have tried to break in to the car park to retrieve some personal belongings. Perhaps he kicked down a gate or something. If it was the driver - hence the headline news - how is it criminal damage as for it to be criminal damage there has to be mens rea. If the guy had to leap out off the car because of an inherent fault in that car model, how has he shown intent to cause criminal damage if it was 'accidental' as also claimed by Mr. Hopkinson in his early press statement? So to put this guy under arrest as 'a precaution' makes people wonder what the game is.

Lastly, it is far too soon to decide the cause or origin of the accident. If you listen to this eye witness here, he describes quite a vivid scene of a flame shooter flying across the top deck and all the cars lighting up together.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0gkqs6c
Click to expand...
More bollocks.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Back
Top Bottom