A diesel engine can only be shut down in two ways. Either cut off the fuel supply or cut off the air supply. There is of course no ignition. Fuel pumps can hang, but a worse threat is a blower leaking oil into the intake, and of course oil will burn like diesel. In later models that had a turbo, seals can go out and dump oil into the intake. The engine will self destruct. If something happens that you can't control the fuel or oil in the intake, you must cut off the air supply. Most if not all Detroits had an emergency kill, but they are not always operative. We always had something handy such as a wadded up sheet out of a sleeper to kill a Detroit in case they ran away if we had any reason to think that they might leak oil into the intake.
