3 days ago
1
The Thiruvananthapuram International Airport has importantly enhanced its craft rescue and firefighting capabilities with the induction of a state-of-the-art Rosenbauer Panther Crash Fire Tender equipped with a High Reach Extendable Turret (HRET), the archetypal of its benignant astatine immoderate airdrome successful Kerala.
The precocious HRET strategy represents a large leap successful aviation firefighting technology. Unlike accepted firefighting turrets, the HRET tin widen and pierce an craft fuselage, enabling firefighters to present water, foam, oregon different extinguishing agents straight into the rider compartment oregon cargo hold. This capableness allows for faster occurrence suppression, reduces risks during exigency situations, and importantly improves rider survivability, peculiarly successful wide-body craft incidents, said the airdrome authorization successful a connection present connected Wednesday (June 3, 2026).
The conveyance is besides equipped with a blase thermal imaging camera susceptible of detecting and locating fires wrong enclosed areas specified arsenic rider cabins and cargo compartments. This exertion enables firefighters to accurately place hotspots and swiftly power fires adjacent erstwhile they are not disposable externally.
When afloat extended, the HRET tin scope a tallness of 16.5 m – equivalent to a five-storey building. It tin task h2o up to 85 m successful some pitchy and spray modes, providing exceptional operational flexibility during exigency response. The pump and rotation diagnostic alteration the conveyance to run the turrets and extinguish the occurrence erstwhile the conveyance is successful motion. The nether motortruck and crushed expanse nozzles support the conveyance from crushed fires adjacent if it is driven implicit tiny crushed fires.
The Rosenbauer panther carries 11,300 litres of water, 1,300 litres of foam, and 250 kg of adust chemic pulverization (DCP), enabling it to efficaciously combat a wide scope of occurrence scenarios. Powered by a 16.1-litre Volvo TAD 1662 VE motor producing 700 horsepower, the conveyance tin accelerate from 0 to 80 km/h successful little than 30 seconds and attain a apical velocity of 120 km/h.
Designed for accelerated effect and challenging terrain, the clang occurrence tender features 24R21 XZL tyres that supply fantabulous stableness during high-speed manoeuvres and crisp turns. Its all-wheel-drive and all-terrain capabilities guarantee dependable show crossed varied operational conditions.
