Were the doors locked from the outside? How did no one open the door and jump out?
The investigation will probably figure that out. Speculation is that the fire blocked the path between the victims and the doors. (That is, the victims might have been sitting up front, away from the doors.)
Followup: I think I found an answer here.
Even on a 110-degree day in direct noonday sun, I doubt that the trunk or passenger compartment can reach 175 degrees.
The fire started in the trunk area. 3 of the 4 women who survived exited the back door which was opened from the outside by a woman who exited through the partition window.
The driver thought they wanted to smoke when they first alerted him. It sounds like he raised the partition back up and the second time he lowered it they screamed for him to pull over. When he got out the rear of the car was engulfed in flames.
2 possibilities. The woman exiting the front hit the door lock button OR the back of the interior was on fire and nobody wanted to move INTO the fire to work the door. Having the door open would make it easier to jump through the proverbial hoop.
A quick look shows you are right. Certainly rear end problems could have exacerbated a fuel leak.
A fire extinquisher wouldn’t have done any good if it was in the trunk of that limo, and probably anything you carry wouldn’t have put out that fire. However the deaths may have been due to the burning interior, and it would be a good idea for any limo to carry a hefty extinquisher in the driver’s compartment, and one inside the passenger compartment as well for a big limo like that.
This sounds like a freak accident, I’ve never heard of something like this happening to a limo before. If that’s the case I’m going to feel sorry for someone when this is litigated. However, it’s possible there were known problems with fuel lines in stretch limos and in that case the guilty parties will get off easy if it costs them nothing but money.
there is nothing in a rear wheel drive car that is inherently more likely to catch fire. A drive shaft or axle is simply not a fire hazard.
the women were most likely overcome by smoke. And yes, the passenger compartment would be the best location for an extinguisher in any vehicle.
If the lines were located in a pinch point susceptible to high points in a road then the builder is going to share a large portion of the blame. Who hasn’t scraped something in their car going over a steep curb?
Something like an overheating U-joint could be an ignition source, but the real cause would have to be leaking fuel. Possibly something loose broke the fuel line. But there are a lot of possibilities, just a few more possibilities from the extra parts in RWD.
An overheating u-joint?
Seriously?
First off in all of my years of working in the industry I have never ever heard of an overheated u-joint.
Secondly even if the u-joint got hot, the mass of the driveshaft and rear axle would conduct the heat away long before ignition became an issue.
So cite?
That and it’s sitting in a slipstream of air passing by at highway speeds. If it’s 5 degrees over ambient temperature I would be surprised. I’ve seen the bearings on them go and you will be made aware of this condition regardless of how loud the stereo gets.
One point is that this was a 1999 vehicle. Isn’t that pretty old for a vehicle in heavy use? Does it suggest the firm is marginal (and perhaps likely to cut corners…).
I can see no mechanical reason for a fire of this extreme intensity. Engine fires can be very dangerous. This fire was in the rear.
Rear brakes could overheat but they won’t turn into a fireball.
Being that fuel lines (in my limited experience, anyway) enter the fuel tank from above, that generally/necessarily has that entry point located in the trunk in larger vehicles, or directly under the back seat in smaller vehicles. Whether or not you classify that as “interior” or not is a distinction without much of a difference - it’s damn close to anyone sitting in the back, without much at all separating them from it. Regardless, if there’s a rupture/leak at that entry point that then gets ignited somehow, anyone sitting in the back of the car is going to consider that fire to be in the interior.
years ago that may have been true (and Rick can correct me) but all the cars I’ve seen as of late put the fuel tanks and lines outside of the unibody. The problem as I see it is ventilation. Air has to move through the car and the exit points become the entry point for flame and smoke propagation. It’s the smoke that initially incapacitates someone. A person has to be able to hold his or her breath long enough to exit the smoke filled area.
I am stating a mere fact of engineering and common sense, more parts, more moving parts in particular, create more failure points. The fire was caused by fuel, gasoline most likely as limos usually have some on boards. But usually that gasoline is kept in the tank, and something changed that in this case. Now if you want to insist that it’s impossible for anything to go wrong in a rear wheel drive car that wouldn’t happen in a front wheel drive car, feel free to sound foolish.
Like I said earlier, I have no experience with limos, or even large/luxury American sedans, so this isn’t necessarily intended to be applicable to the limo incident, just the notion that fuel lines are always/legally mandated to be nowhere near and completely isolated from the interior.
In a quick search for a video to illustrate where I’m coming from, here’s a good (and perhaps extreme) example of what I was saying. (Just disregard the somewhat humorous nature of the clip, it was a quick search, so sue me - it’s still quite illustrative.) Again, this isn’t to show the scenario/setup in the limo – I’m sure that’s quite different – it’s just to show people who weren’t aware that there’s not always necessarily/legally all that much separating passengers from fuel lines and the fuel tank. The more you know… (The more you might want to take the “carry a fire extinguisher” advice!)
In that clip, right under the back seat, all there is a flimsy little cover between the back seat and the fuel lines. Once he disconnects those and pulls out the fuel pump, you’re staring directly into the fuel tank! If there were a gas leak and ignition at that location, do you think someone sitting in the back seat would consider that to be a problem in the exterior of the car?
You’re moving the goalpost. You’re responding to posts specifically challenging the idea that a drive shaft U-joint would cause a fire. Rick is a professional mechanic. He literally has seen thousands of cars over the years and is in the business of knowing what parts fail. A U-joint consists of sealed needle bearings surrounding 4 posts. The joint itself is floating in air with nothing around it. It simply is not going to cause a fire even in mechanical distress. there is nothing around it to ignite and it’s kept cool by air flowing around it.
The types of things that might ignite a leaking fuel line would be the catalytic converter which can get hot enough to glow red if the fuel mixture is off. Brakes that have locked up could cause a fire. A turbocharger run at high boost with a poor mixture could cause a fire. It takes a minimum temperature of 475F to ignite it.
Here is what I said:
That was in response to a question of whether the limo would have rear wheel drive.
I threw out the over heated U-joint referring to a previous post mentioning that, nothing else. I’m not the one moving the goalposts. If you want to say an overheating U-joint wasn’t a contributing factor, that’s fine, but it hasn’t been the point of my argument at all. Address what I’m saying in context if you have some point to make.
The “flimsy little cover” is solid metal and it separates the interior of the car from the tank below. unless the car is folded like an accordion this is not a problem. In this case, the tank on the Lincoln has to be dropped to get to the fuel pump.
It doesn’t matter, because people are talking about the exterior of the passenger compartment. Nobody is saying the fire started externally to the car in total.