Ventilating Mines with Repurposed Airplane Engines

I had never heard of a Gorniczy Agregat Gasniczy apparatus prior to the Pike River Mine disaster still unfolding in New Zealand, where one such device is about to be deployed.

The GAG, as it’s known, is a jet engine inertisation unit developed for use in mines, controlling and suppressing coal seam fires, Wikipedia explains—another way of saying that it is literally a jet engine that you plug into one end of a sealed mine in order to blow high-powered chemical winds (carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and water vapor) into the tunnels below. These gases then lower the oxygen levels, suppressing fires and forcing methane out of the mine — via BLDGBLOG