Luton Airport Fire Report Blames 3 Litre Diesel Range Rover

The following synopsis has been circulating online. I'd just like to run it past the Panel here to check if there's anything noteworthy about it; does it all add up?

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https://www.bedsfire.gov.uk/sites/d...icant Incident Report LLA Car Park 2 fire.pdf

Name: Significant Incident Report LLA Car Park 2 fire.pdf
Size: 3,725,439 bytes (3638 KiB)
SHA256: F3E26E41DE16CA11243B7319F0EFC3B61FE86BA41921AF02EFF935EC75E1D0FB

110 pages

Page 11:

Incident Details
The initial 999 call was ‘received by Bedfordshire FRS Service Control at 20:47:20 hrs by
Crew Manager Service Control B from the driver of the Range Rover that was on fire. When
questioned by Service Control, the caller advised their car was a diesel Range Rover that it
was located on the third floor.’13 The subsequent fire investigation confirmed that the vehicle
was powered by a diesel non-hybrid internal combustion engine.

Page 86:

Fire Progression
The fire originated in a red 2014, Range Rover Sport with a 2993cc diesel engine.219 It is the
expert opinion of the Fire Investigator that when taking into consideration all available facts
at the time of the Fire Scene Investigation that the fire was the ‘result of accidental ignition.’220
This was due to an ‘electrical fault or component failure. The developing fire has spread to
other components including plastics within the engine compartment and its oil and fuel 221.’
The driver stopped the ‘vehicle on the roadway of the third floor of Terminal Car Park 2 due
to seeing flames on the passenger side of the vehicle. Vehicle positioning was offset to the
centre of the roadway with the nearside (passengers’ side) being closer to adjacent vehicles
in parking bays.’222 ‘Subsequent radiant heat (In the region of 2.5 - 5 megawatts for a vehicle
fire) was sufficient for the ignition of adjacent vehicles.’ 223

... It was confirmed that the Range Rover involved was fitted with a
plastic fuel tank. Heat of the developing fire will have been sufficient to ignite some of these
fuels as they followed the sloping gradient of the roadway surface, spreading ignitable fuel

So they're saying the electrical fire was hot enough to take a tank of diesel above it's flash point and maintain that heat as it ran down a cold concrete slope? Yes, the fuel lines are on the N/S of the vehicle but there's (IMO) a lack of understanding of vehicle systems in that very simplistic report. Plastic fuel tanks are nothing new and the fact the vehicle was still capable of being driven under fire condition suggests to me that the fuel lines were still intact.

I would add that I've seen vehicles recovered after an engine bay electrical fires (and yes, an L494 diesel was one of them) the fuel lines had melted (on the L494) but there were no signs of a fuel fire, the fuel tank was intact above it's metal shield and still had a significant quantity of fuel in it. Other vehicles with similar damage, some after collisions did not lose the fuel tank integrety due to fire - to be fair, if it was a large fire, it'd have gone straight to the recovery compound.
.
It's almost like someone wants it to be a ICE vehicle....

Graculus said:

So they're saying the electrical fire was hot enough to take a tank of diesel above it's flash point and maintain that heat as it ran down a cold concrete slope? Yes, the fuel lines are on the N/S of the vehicle but there's (IMO) a lack of understanding of vehicle systems in that very simplistic report. Plastic fuel tanks are nothing new and the fact the vehicle was still capable of being driven under fire condition suggests to me that the fuel lines were still intact.

I would add that I've seen vehicles recovered after an engine bay electrical fires (and yes, an L494 diesel was one of them) the fuel lines had melted (on the L494) but there were no signs of a fuel fire, the fuel tank was intact above it's metal shield and still had a significant quantity of fuel in it. Other vehicles with similar damage, some after collisions did not lose the fuel tank integrety due to fire - to be fair, if it was a large fire, it'd have gone straight to the recovery compound.
.
It's almost like someone wants it to be a ICE vehicle....

Click to expand...

I read it a little differently to you, it was the developing fire from the plastics etc that ignited other cars close by and eventually melted the tank.
222 ‘Subsequent radiant heat (In the region of 2.5 - 5 megawatts for a vehicle
fire) was sufficient for the ignition of adjacent vehicles.’
They wouldn't admit to a BEV being the cause would they?

My partner witnessed a single deck bus self-ignite a couple of years ago. the blaze was caused by the main battery leads chaffing through their insulation where they passed through the rear wheel arch just forward of the engine bay. That in turn spread to adjacent hydraulic lines which had a supply of fuel as the hydraulic reservoir is in the same area. The fuel tank is in the same area and was undamaged and the diesel fuel didn't ignite. The bus was a total write-off within 15 minutes. I also "know someone" who disposes of used engine oil in plastic oil drums on a bonfire, the oil burns long before the plastic drums fully melt. If that information is any use to anbody.

doesnt explain the jet of flames coming out the side seen on the video

Does anyone know the registration number of the accused vehicle?

I bet the parking company does, clocked on the way in and got 238 PCNs for not paying...

Nsf of of the car might have be the fbh feed pipe split, reported a few times on the d3forum as a few d3 caught fire.

One of the reasons I replaced the short piece of rubber hose, old one was rock hard and splitting, it is right above the fbh exhaust pipe.

It's on the other side on a 2014 Sport and an Eberspacher unit with a different fuel in / exhaust out layout.

The reason I'm after the registration is that I'm wondering if it was a hybrid vehicle (there were hybrid 3.0l diesels in 2014 in L494 models) the (relatively) small Lithium battery would indeed be capable of generating the 'jets of flames' we all saw on the videos.
I can easily check the specification from the registration.

ETA - a fire report from a full-sized EV battery 'incident' attached...

Graculus said:

The reason I'm after the registration is that I'm wondering if it was a hybrid vehicle (there were hybrid 3.0l diesels in 2014 in L494 models) the (relatively) small Lithium battery would indeed be capable of generating the 'jets of flames' we all saw on the videos.
I can easily check the specification from the registration.

ETA - a fire report from a full-sized EV battery 'incident' attached...

Click to expand...

The first report I saw of the fire from here in France claimed it was a hybrid, but given the unreliability of the news media, who knows?

Graculus said:

Does anyone know the registration number of the accused vehicle?

Click to expand...

E10 EFL Apparently
Although shows as gold and not red. Could be wrapped I suppose.

It's MOT and TAX have expired. How naughty.

It was a 4.4 V8 2016 Diesel

Diesel Hybrid Was original story with source of initial ignition from lithium battery. Think it was 48v or somesuch? Mostly I remember Dopey cracking jokes and Kermit losing sleep over C1 or C4 5w30

Graculus said:

Does anyone know the registration number of the accused vehicle?

Click to expand...

It falied an MOT in 2022 due to:

• Nearside Headlamp aim too low (4.1.2 (a))
• Offside Headlamp aim too high (4.1.2 (a))

So may have had a bit of a knock at some point.

Montyjohn said:

E10 EFL Apparently
Although shows as gold and not red. Could be wrapped I suppose.

It's MOT and TAX have expired. How naughty.

It was a 4.4 V8 2016 Diesel

Click to expand...

or it could have been a clone

badfluffy said:

or it could have been a clone

Click to expand...

Bit of a coincidence for it to also now the off the road. I suspect it had a bump and wrapped as a part of the repair.

Montyjohn said:

Bit of a coincidence for it to also now the off the road. I suspect it had a bump and wrapped as a part of the repair

Click to expand...

wrapping isnt cheap, cost less to paint a few panels than wrap a complete car

Montyjohn said:

E10 EFL Apparently
Although shows as gold and not red. Could be wrapped I suppose.

It's MOT and TAX have expired. How naughty.

It was a 4.4 V8 2016 Diesel

Click to expand...

Looks like it was a 'cherished' registration, the SDV8 Sport it currently adorns has these details:-



So my cunning plan to expose a conspiracy has been scuppered!