ATL on fire thread!
 

Apparently the Plane Train caught on fire between Concourse C and D and filled the tunnel with smoke. ATC has delayed all flights until they get it cleared out. Please post any news here!

Still waiting for the tunnel to be reopened. Waiting at C

Train is moving now everything on time

Wow! This is better than CNN! :)

All FlyerTalkers OK?!?!?

Already on AJC and some other news outlets
Any of our FT'ers have footage on YouTube yet :)

http://www.ajc.com/news/news/fire-cl...a-airpo/nWsK2/

Probably another brake fire. The new trains seem to have a higher than normal rate of brake fire/smoke events, this has happened a few times before

Hoping everyone is ok and that this won't be impact service tomorrow.

I hope arrivals/departures weren't impacted (because there should be no reason for that). Just delay the immediate departures (within 15 mins) until the issue is resolved or passengers are otherwise able to get to their flights.

Since we are two weeks removed from the status balance of 3/1, maybe DL is firing up more ham sammiches?

I got stuck on the train on Monday. It kept making an announcement to the effect of "the plane train has encountered a mechanical delay. Your train will be operational in a few minutes". The ATL train always puzzled me in that it follows the phonetic alphabet until you get to concourse D which it refers to "D as in David".

You know why I am sure...

Interesting. So, I guess you're thinking that - what - If the train said "D" as in "Delta", that might be showing favortism, or unfair free advertising, or something?

:)

Mmmmm! Smoked ham-iches! :D

More so that it doesn't confuse the Kettles! :D Ma and Pa hear "Concourse D as in Delta" and get off the train thinking that all DL departures go out of D. It's an airport-wide thing...even the FAA tower refers to DL flights as "Dixie" to avoid confusion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlanta...rt#Other_notes

Close. They call any taxiway D as "dixie". Delta flights still get called Delta :)

Was passing through last Friday and while walking from B to A I noticed a strong burnt rubber smell and saw a lot of passengers waiting to take the plane train from A towards F. Didn't think too much of it, until I got to a gate to standby and passengers came running saying it had broken down.

Turns out, I got placed at the top of the standby list (flight was oversold by 4) and got the only seat left; all thanks to the plane train.

D'oh! Why didn't I think of that! :)

Wait a minute . . . D'ya mean they don't???

;)

I was thinking that favoritism would be a reason why concourse D should be referred to as Delta. ATL has been kissing Delta's APU for decades! :D

It is to prevent confusion amongst passengers. Mostly Connection flights go out of D. I bet D alone fills about 10% of all of DL's departures (Connection included.) The bulk goes out of A and B.

D as in Delta - unfair advertising to the other airlines that use ATL?

You do realize that the Taxiway D at ATL is named Dixie as to not confuse Delta with Delta Airlines too? Dixie is fitting considering ATL is in the South after all. :D

Doh! You're totally right. My bad!

So it turned out to be a moving sidewalk in the tunnel between C and D that caught on fire and not the Plane Train. They got the train working quickly but due to crowds they encouraged people going just to D to walk to free up the train for those going to E and F since they are further out. You could see where they were working in the moving sidewalk and it was burned up inside. The people conglomerating and bumbling around the tunnel around D Concourse were jamming the place up making it take forever to get anywhere.

Fair use image from linked article:

http://media.cmgdigital.com/shared/l...rport-fire.jpg

If ATL had really been on fire, would they have changed the name of the airport from "Hartsfield-Jackson" to "William Tecumseh Sherman"?

Didn't even know it happened.

I got picked up in a Porsche!

Oops, wrong thread :)

This has #WIN written all over it ^

So much for non-smoking terminals.

That picture looks pretty much like what one would see every time flying through ATL.

This explains the fire alarm going off intermittently in B last night. The message kept repeating something like "An emergency has been reported in this building. Please stand by while we verify the emergency". It was universally ignored.

We landed at ATL in the A concourse around 7PM and flew out of B at 9 with no delays but the train was definitely not running when we were there (one was dwelling in A) and there were announcements to that effect in the tunnel. We weren't sure if the train caught fire again setting off the fire alarm or if the fire alarm going off stopped the train. I guess it was the later.

EDIT: reading the article, the fire happened at 7:30 and the entire tunnel filled with smoke quickly after that. We must have been down there just as it was happening because we noticed the trains stopped and the alarms but no smoke yet when we walked from A to B.

Not just the taxiway. The tower uses "dixie" in place of "delta" for all uses of the phoenetic alphabet for "d".

I walked through there yesterday afternoon and I am pretty sure the folks who work on those were there... Before the fire...

Not to take this to a political left turn, but many innocent people including women and children were raped and killed during that campaign. Had their property taken and their homes burned. If one were to make a lighthearted joke about similar events that happened to other people, the PC police would be aghast and deem it "outrageously offensive"*... It does not offend me personally, but I like to note these matters for posterity...

Many innocent people have suffered from every war. There comes a time when the memories are not so fresh as to be impossible to joke about. Certainly, we can make jokes about Ghengis Kahn or Alexander the Great's campaigns.

While the Holocaust is certainly much too recent to be able to joke about it in good taste, there was another, earlier, attempt at a Holocaust. It was in Persia and many innocent people did, indeed, die -- and most of these were Jews.

Yet, Judaism as a religion today jokes about that. In fact, the holiday that notes it, Purim, is marked with jokes, drinking, and Halloween-type costumes.

The Civil War ended in 1865 -- that was 148 years ago. Nobody who lived through Sherman's march on Georgia is alive today. I doubt that any of their children are alive today. Some, but not many, of their grandchildren are.

My grandfather was a bootlegger during Prohibition. He never talked about it to us. My father did not discuss it much (nor the fact that my grandfather was related to Bugsy Seigel). I have no problem in talking about it at all. Both of my children, who are also descended from a famous Hebrew journalist/satirist, barely mentioned him in their school "family tree" reports but went on at length about their bootlegger great-grandfather and Bugsy.

Heck, I was waiting for the PC police to call out against using the word Dixie. :)

We will be doing our own march to the sea this afternoon, fighting traffic not Yankee soldiers, to get to my hometown SAV for the holiday weekend. Hope not to encounter anything on fire along the way.

As for the picture posted up thread - who still does that sunglasses on the back of your head thing?

Ok, so what is the acceptable go time when it comes to making fun of people who were slaughtered or enslaved? I am holding onto to some awesome injun jokes...

Dixie Carter is an American treasure....

I would say when Native Americans and the descendants of slaves are no longer suffering from what happened to their ancestors. That day, unfortunately, has not yet arrived.

On the other hand, from my visits to Atlanta, I would say that the city has recovered completely from Sherman's march.

The guy I work for is a billionaire and is.... Uhhh.... Not too affected by the uhhhh.... Stuff that uhhh...

Never mind...

Indeed she is, as is the guy you work for, if I'm reading it with the right accent. :cool:

More to the point, it would be historically inaccurate. Confederate General John Bell Hood set that fire to cover his retreat and keep any supplies from falling into Sherman's hands. Sherman didn't start his foraging camapaign (General Order 120) until he set out for Macon a month later, so burning the supplies only hurt the citizens of Atlanta.

Atlanta was shelled for days in a terror attack similar to what happened in Charleston. Many of its civilians were killed, raped, tortured, and/or displaced. To state Hood totally destroyed Atlanta as a strategic move is highly misleading.

I had people on both sides of that terrible war, so I am not a rah, rah South guy.... Just a student of history...

Gate lice!

Will be landing in ATL soon.