Floyd

prob not the one you're thinking of but,

BOG....


ALPA Superior Airmanship Award
Late on the evening of April 13, 2004, United Flight 854,
Boeing 767-300 service from Buenos Aires, Argentina, to
Miami, Fla., was in cruise flight at FL310 over the jungles
of southern Colombia, South America. Capt. Brian Witcher
and First Officers Donald Arlotta and Ross Windom were
the flight crew that night.
Capt. Witcher later recalled the flight, up until that
moment, as “a normal all-nighter and the last leg of a fiveday
trip. With Don, the relief pilot, flying, I was moments
away from my rest period.”
Suddenly, the autopilot warning horn went off, the cockpit
went bright with standby lighting, and the first officer’s
panel went blank. In a proficiency checkride, Capt.
Witcher had seen a demonstration of what this problem
appeared to be—a complete loss of A/C power, with the
hydraulic motor generator (HMG) activating to supply
power to the captain’s instruments.
Capt. Witcher took manual control of the airplane and
called for a checklist to deal with the electrical failure.
The B-767 was fast approaching the terrain-critical area
south of Bogota, Colombia, and Capt. Witcher thought
about diverting to Caracas, Venezuela, to avoid the Andes
Mountains lurking below in the darkness. Then the pilots
realized that their “simple” electrical problem was
something else.
The overhead electrical panel appeared normal, with
no lights on except for the battery discharge light. In fact,
the entire overhead panel was normal, with only the autospeedbrake
and rudder ratio lights illuminated. The pilots
pressed the light-test switch and confirmed that all
the lights worked and none of the bulbs were burned out.
F/O Windom arrived from the crew rest area. The three
pilots discussed the situation and their options. Shortly
afterward, Capt. Witcher’s instruments began to fail.
The pilots immediately declared an emergency and
asked air traffic control for a clearance to Bogota. They
tried to establish radio communications with United’s
dispatch office, both through HF and satellite radios, without
success.
The EICAS displays were full of cautions. The pilots
soon realized that no checklist existed to cover the situation
in which they found themselves. They knew they
had a serious electrical problem, but the HMG should kick
in and keep the captain’s instruments powered—at least,
that’s what the book says.
The only radio still working gave up the ghost while
the pilots were trying to get vectors from Bogota Center.
So much for the book!
Capt. Witcher said later, “While I sat there watching
my instruments die, I decided to try something, anything,
to get some power back. The alternative was a totally black
cockpit in about 15 minutes or so and a night landing at
Bogota, an airport surrounded by very tall mountains,
with all of our electronic navigation and communication
equipment useless.”
Capt. Witcher reset the generator control circuit breakers.
The pilots were surprised when the VHF radio, and
Capt. Witcher’s instruments, came to life again.
“No problem now,” they thought. “We still have an
emergency, but with some electrical power.”
Their elation was short-lived: the VHF radio quit again,
and Capt. Witcher’s instruments began to fail, while the
airplane was still about 200 nautical miles from Bogota.
The FAA requires manufacturers to demonstrate that a
modern airliner can continue to operate safely for 30 minutes
with no electrical power except the juice in the battery.
That’s with a new battery, and after the 30 minutes
has gone by, it’s anybody’s guess how much longer the
battery will provide essential power.
The pilots of Flight 854 squeezed 41 minutes from their
30-minute battery because they turned off everything they
could, including the outside lights, to conserve battery
power.
The pilots were very relieved when the landing gear
lowered when commanded, because unlocking the gear
requires some electrical power. Capt. Witcher reset the
generator control circuit breaker three times before they
landed safely, but with no clearance from Bogota Tower,
because their radios still didn’t work. The pilots landed
with less than two volts of battery power left.
The airplane was certified for extended twin-engine
operations and has redundant electrical generating systems
to prevent total loss of both A/C and D/C power.
The pilots would not learn until after the flight that a single
bracket grounds both transformer rectifier units in the A/
C electrical system. United’s Maintenance Department
eventually found that corrosion had caused a short circuit
of the grounding bracket and that the HMG did not
come on line because it falsely sensed that the airplane
had normal A/C power.

oldmako

Nice tie.




filler

TimetoClimb

I just don't see how they only have 5k apps on file. There are some 20k regional pilots and thousands of mil pilots. Add Corp. And 135 in the mix gotta be 10-15k.

Really

Just to clear up my point, its sounds like they did arrive at the emergency ONLY crappy facility in South American mountains in the middle of the night, "Safely". (Unless I missed something in your story?) Did Captain Marvin add risk to his flight by accepting an A/C with MEL'd APU? Yes. But, why are you the one that should be the judge of what another Captain should accept as a level of risk they are comfortable with? In one breath you don't want the company or another Captain to judge you for what you are comfortable with yet in another breath you are condemning another Captain for exercising his own judgement of risk. A little hypocritical, wouldn't you say?

Probe

James;
I did not mean that refusing an airplane amounts to buffoonery. I meant when a small number of individuals do it over and over for 25 years, buffoonery is a much nicer term than I would really like to write here without getting booted off the forum.

I had a Dispatcher on my jumpseat for a couple of legs a year or so ago. The Dispatchers know them by name. Unfortunately a lot of them are on our wide body fleets, and have been for a long time. And yes they are predominantly LUAL.

I also had the displeasure to fly with a much more recent hire (late 90's) who bid 756 left seat about a year ago. I am sure he is legendary by now in his new base. He was at our base, as an FO. First FO I actually considered throwing out of the cockpit. He was personally responsible for numerous cancellations in only a couple of years.

There are lots of reasons to refuse an airplane. I think I have done it twice in 13 years in the left seat. I think only 1 air return. I would bet 90+ percent of us have similar stats. But a small number have much more. They are not worth it to our customers, fellow employees, or the company. Their total "cost" is a tragedy.

Floyd

For a small number of pilots you would allow the erosion of Captain's authority? Therein lies the tragedy.

oldmako

Really,

Perhaps you're right.

I just don't want the fear of turning down a plane to interfere with Captain's authority, and I don't want to see a couple of gung-ho get the mission done guys setting the standards either. Our Air Safety guys posted a list of items which should be ordinarily considered no-go. The instance I referenced was on that list, namely taking a 67 with no APU to deep SA at night.

It's all very easy for me to say since I'm an FO, but I made those decisions in a past life at other airlines whose safety culture was worse and where pilot pushing was rampant. I've also volunteered to take the calls when guys thought I was being a tool for having an issue with a plane. (No TCAS departing LAX during the absolute height of the fires about a decade ago. The lower third of the state was MVFR. Amazingly enough, "No Parts" turned into "Parts" just like that)

It's not an easy decision, and there's not an easy fix.

PowderFinger

I vaguely remember seeing the list put out by the Air Safety Committee ... Is it still around?

Zenofzin

There’s no easy fix I’m sure, but I recently had a dispatcher on the jumpseat and the reasons he told us guys were refusing planes were amazing, like no acars for example. I had an fo from Denver to pdx who thought we should refuse the plane because our APU was on MEL, another with apubleed MEL thought we should refuse the plane because of light snow at the airport. I spent 5 years flying a plane with no APU in some pretty sh&t weather. Nobody is asking anyone to risk safety and our company always stresses safety above all else. But Jesus there a reason we carry an MEL

Flytolive

Thanks to some stalwart Captains the "the MEL says it's legal" go along, get along mentality has failed to win the day at United. Thanks to these leaders we have a strong Captains Authority culture for those wish to access it and we enjoy things like Iridium Satcom on international fleets, functional APUs, quieter FCRFs, crew meals when requested and a better understanding of Captain's authority and responsibility. I appreciate what these Captains do for their fellow crew members and our customers.