Berlin's new airport's fire alarm/suppression system didn't work. The solution? Interns!
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How Berlin’s Futuristic Airport Became a $6 Billion Embarrassment
Inside Germany’s profligate (Greek-like!) fiasco called Berlin Brandenburg
Exerpts (it looks like one big long quote but it's not because Discourse is a fart):
In March 2012 the group submitted its stopgap: Eight hundred low-paid workers armed with cell phones would take up positions throughout the terminal. If anyone smelled smoke or saw a fire, he would alert the airport fire station and direct passengers toward the exits.
It was, says Martin Delius, “an idiotic plan.” Delius is a physicist and member of Berlin’s parliament who has conducted an extensive investigation of the airport’s troubled infrastructure.
On May 7, less than four weeks before the scheduled opening, Loge met with Schwarz for the first time. The airport, Schwarz conceded, would have to open using the army of human fire detectors.
“Professor, let me understand this,” Loge said. “You are talking about having 800 people wearing orange vests, sitting on camping stools, holding thermoses filled with coffee, and shouting into their cell phones, ‘Open the fire door’?” Loge refused the airport an operating license. Schwarz stood up and walked out without another word.
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Yeah, BER is a clusterfuck. By the time it will finally be ready, it would probably have been cheaper to tear it down and start over.
Wikipedia has some nice details why the fire suppression system doesn't work:
**For aesthetics, designers decided** that the terminal would have no smoke extraction ducts on its rooftop. In case of fire, smoke would be pumped into exhaust ducts running **below** the structure, requiring the natural behavior of hot air to be reversed. Achieving this on the scale necessary for this airport is a unique undertaking and, thus far, this elaborate smoke extraction system has not worked as planned. To meet the requirements for the fire system to pass the acceptance test, large scale reconstruction work might be needed.
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In case of fire, smoke would be pumped into exhaust ducts running below the structure,
So in the case of fire they have to turn on more electrical equipment? Awesome design, Germans.
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But almost as a mocking counterpoint, the lights in the terminal couldn’t be turned off because of a computer glitch no one could fix, and the electricity bill soared.
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So in the case of fire they have to turn on more electrical equipment? Awesome design, Germans.
I would not be surprised if a plan involving 800 low paid workers to suck the smoke out, is on the table. One of the benefits they are offering, is being allowed to smoke at their work place.
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But almost as a mocking counterpoint, the lights in the terminal couldn’t be turned off because of a computer glitch no one could fix, and the electricity bill soared.
They can just have the interns physically plug and unplug lights, as needed.
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Sounds like an opportunity for Greece to earn its bailout.
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That's as seen by the Star Trek School of Engineering.
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That's as seen by the Star Trek School of Engineering.
Really sucks to be one of the interns that gets a red vest/shirt.
Edit: Guess that would be one of the following guys:
[...] some students would be stationed near the smoke evacuation channels, where in a fire temperatures could reach 1,000F [...]
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Oh this is great:
When they simulated a fire, though, the system went haywire. Some alarms failed to activate. Others indicated a fire, but in the wrong part of the terminal. The explanation was buried in the 55-mile tangle of wiring that had been laid, hastily, beneath the floors of the building where ORAT technicians soon discovered **high-voltage power lines alongside data and heating cables—a fire hazard in its own right**. That wasn’t all. Smoke evacuation canals designed to suck out smoke and replace it with fresh air failed to do either. **In an actual fire, the inspectors determined, the main smoke vent might well implode.**
So the fire suppression system is a fire hazard‽
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Hey - they fixed it!
Smoke now channels upward through chimneys, in accordance with the laws of physics.
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Reading through this now (again) I had the most evil and wicked thought. On the surface, it would seem that somebody, somewhere has perpetuated the most beautiful building corruption scam, ever. Now, that is not the sort of thing you would expect of the Germans as a culture, or of Europe generally. peaking as a "European" it is something, I have been told and learnt, to be expected in America. It is also something that you would expect as the result of using cheap unsupervised labour.
Now, given the relationship between Germany and,Greece, and the low GDP of the latter. It would not be unreasonable to conclude that the latter's GDP is the result of former exploiting the latter, to the extreme, and the latter' physical response to such exploitation.
But then the former have always done this, and appear to have not learnt any lessons and it could explain the former's apparent wealth.
Basically: you get what you pay for.
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Even more laughable is that they want that thing to replace both TXL and SXF.
Like that won't end in the biggest air-borne traffic jam ever.
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When the US fucks up big infrastructure projects, it's not because the money's getting skimmed by some scammer, it's because the project is genuinely mis-managed by wasteful morons.
Now, defense contracts on the other hand...
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When the US fucks up big infrastructure projects, it's not because the money's getting skimmed by some scammer, it's because the project is genuinely mis-managed by wasteful morons.
It's a combination of both, with the morons as potential scapegoats for the scammers.Now, given the relationship between Germany and,Greece, and the low GDP of the latter. It would not be unreasonable to conclude that the latter's GDP is the result of former exploiting the latter, to the extreme, and the latter' physical response to such exploitation.
Of course it is. The German administration even forced them to pay for submarines they had ordered before the "crisis" (yes, pacta sunt servanda, but come on. What does Greece need submarines for if it can't even pay its pensions?).
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Hanlon's Razor: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."
I choose to substitute incompetence for stupidity in that lemma as I am an optimist that believes incompetence is more widespread than stupidity.
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Why is an article about BER/EDDB illustrated with a picture of Paul McCartney?
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@cvi said:
But almost as a mocking counterpoint, the lights in the terminal couldn’t be turned off because of a computer glitch no one could fix, and the electricity bill soared.
They can just have the interns physically plug and unplug lights, as needed.
You joke, but I'm sure this would work far better than whatever system those morons in charge can come up with.
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Now, that is not the sort of thing you would expect of the Germans as a culture, or of Europe generally. peaking as a "European" it is something, I have been told and learnt, to be expected in America.
Sounds more like the sort of thing you'd expect in China or any other communist sort of place.
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I can only hope that the entire administration is sacked and replaced by competent people, and that everyone responsible is jailed. Wasting tens or hundreds of M€ of public money should not be a joke.
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Well, the airport is being built in a location that was formerly part of the GDR ...
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Pretty sure thats why we elected her! I mean, don't you secretly also wish Paul McCartney was Americas president?
Filed Under: It's all a giant scam! That is not McCartney, just a fake! But we noticed to late and even reelected her!
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Well, the airport is being built in a location that was formerly part of the GDR ...
It's part of the same airfield as SXF (but on the opposite side of the runways) so it's entirely arguable that they are indeed going for “tear it all down and build afresh” except that they're building it first.
Which is about the only sensible thing in the whole affair.
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They wanted to rely on cell phones to resolve an emergency?
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! Haven't seen those details before. Bunch of imbecile wishful airheads. Would laugh again.
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When the US fucks up big infrastructure projects, it's not because the money's getting skimmed by some scammer, it's because the project is genuinely mis-managed by wasteful morons.
The Big Dig arguably owed a lot of its cost overruns to corruption. They even arrested six people from one of the concrete suppliers for "Conspiracy to defraud the United States". However, I too am surprised that Europe sees the US as a place where corruption is common. I would think their neighbors to the east would have that honor.
On a non-corruption note - the Denver airport had a lot of the same problems that Berlin seems to be having. Instead of Berlin's retarded fire suppression system, Denver had it's retarded baggage handling system.
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Indeed, it is a case of massive corruption owing to the fact that there's one large company (Imtech) behind it.
It is actually in the interest of such companies to build as slow as they can and to do everything by the design plans to the letter, even when they (should) know that the plans are problematic.
Particularly when said company relies on a variant of the snowball system to keep afloat.
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Sounds more like the sort of thing you'd expect in China
Why, that's both ridiculous and racist!
Oh, never mind.
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@boomzilla said:
Sounds more like the sort of thing you'd expect in China
Why, that's both ridiculous and racist!
Oh, never mind.
What? You just pull it up again. Good as new!
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The baggage handling system was a monumental waste of money yes. But it was based off a German design. Damn Germans, why must they suck at engineering?
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The Big Dig arguably owed a lot of its cost overruns to corruption.
That's not the US, that's the East Coast. Them people are like aliens over there.
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Look, I don't think it's a controversial statement to say that every single person on the East Coast of the US is either insane (thinks they are an animal of some sort) or literally an alien.
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Look, I don't think it's a controversial statement to say that every single person on the East Coast of the US is either insane (thinks they are an animal of some sort) or literally an alien.
so long as i can make exactly the same generalization for everyone who lives west of the Rockies i'll not argue with that.
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Except this time it would be true, because California exists. off to /r/FloridaMan
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What? You just pull it up again. Good as new!
I would actually like to see a crane big enough to do that. I can't imagine I'd want to live in a building that had fallen over like that--I'd be afraid it would shatter.
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Look, I don't think it's a controversial statement to say that every single person on the East Coast of the US is either insane (thinks they are an animal of some sort) or literally an alien.
If they're aliens, then so are you, by symmetry.
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so long as i can make exactly the same generalization for everyone who lives west of the Rockies i'll not argue with that.
Well, I live in the middle, so I guess I'm perfectly normal...
Shut up miniature William Shatner who lives in my nose!
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Well, I live in the middle, so I guess I'm perfectly normal...
compared to those on the wet side of the rockies..... i would say so!
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Instead of Berlin's retarded fire suppression system, Denver had it's retarded baggage handling system
Don't tell me... they tried to suck baggage up through ceiling ducts for aesthetic reasons?
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What? You just pull it up again. Good as new!
What do you mean, "again"? That's how they build them to begin with. Saves all that tedious mucking about with scaffolding.
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so long as i can make exactly the same generalization for everyone who lives west of the Rockies i'll not argue with that.
Guess I'm safe, since I'm not really "west of" the Rockies. More like "south of", if anything.
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Guess I'm safe, since I'm not really "west of" the Rockies. More like "south of", if anything.
True, you're in what i like to call "the land of it's too fucking hot to ■■■■"
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Look, I don't think it's a controversial statement to say that every single person on the East Coast of the US is either insane (thinks they are an animal of some sort) or literally an alien.
so long as i can make exactly the same generalization for everyone who lives west of the Rockies i'll not argue with that.
Except this time it would be true, because California exists
Hmm - I moved from the East coast to CA. Not sure if insane or alien. Maybe an insane alien?
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Yep.
