Prior to departure, the flight crew noted anomalies with the airplane clocks. Once corrected, they proceeded with the flight. En route, the airplane experienced numerous electrical anomalies where various warning lights would illuminate, and then extinguish. These occurrences were also accompanied by uncommanded auto-pilot disconnects, changes in airplane zero fuel weight, as displayed on the control display unit (CDU) of the flight management system (FMS), and the blanking of transponder codes. The flight crew, in radio contact with their dispatch center, discussed the situation and agreed that they could continue with the flight. The Boeing Aircraft Company through the Martinair dispatch center supplied technical assistance. A check of the passenger cabin revealed that numerous personal electronic devices (PEDs) were in use. They were requested to be turned off. At one time while over the North Atlantic, there was a period of time when no anomalies occurred. Nearing the North American continent, and with additional anomalies occurring, the flight crew initially planned to divert to Newark, New Jersey. As the electrical anomalies continued, additional systems were affected, and a decision was made to divert to Boston, Massachusetts. Following the decision to divert, there were failures of the co-pilots electronic attitude director indictors (EADI), and electronic horizontal situation indicators (EHSI). Navigation was lost to the captain's EHSI.
During the initial descent into Boston, the aircraft was flown manually due to autothrottle disengagement and multiple A/P disengagements. When the airplane was configured with flaps 1 (slat extension, no trailing edge flaps), the two needles on a cockpit gauge which represented the respective wing slat positions disagreed. The flight crew checked the runway required for landing with zero flaps, and the runway available at Boston. With sufficient runway available, the captain in concert with the other crew member decided to make no more configuration changes, resulting in a leading edge slat only approach speed of 162 knots, Flap problems had been expected by the crew based on the previous events. The slats were visually inspected to be extended. In the cabin the seatbelts signs switched on and off uncommanded.
During the last portion of flight, the Engine Indicating and Crew Alerting System (EICAS) was filled with caution and advisory messages which were read by F/O 2 from the observers seat on request of the captain.
Although no identification could be received from the Instrument Landing System (ILS), the indication on the left Attitude Director Indicator (ADI) and on the standby ADI seemed valid. On final approach to Boston, numerous warning lights illuminated, extinguished, and other warning lights illuminated.
After touch down reverse thrust and autospeedbrakes were not available. Manual braking was anticipated since the autobrake selector did not latch. Braking was done manually by the captain while the wing spoilers were extended by the F/O 1. Just after touch-down the captain initially used full manual braking. The cabin crew's observations were as if they were riding on gravel (pebbles), and the cockpit crew suspected tire failures just after turning off the runway. The last high speed turn off to the left was taken to vacate runway 4R, on which the airplane was brought to a stop. The pilots reported to feel no effect from the manually selected ground spoilers. In the meantime all main landing gear tires were blown or deflated and the airplane was brought to a stop without fully vacating the runway. A small wheel brake fire developed after landing and was immediately extinguished by the airport fire fighting personnel
SATL382G From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 3, posted (5 years 2 months 4 weeks 1 hour ago) and read 1200 times:
No prob..
Kind of interesting going back to read this. I didn't know the airplane was returned to service with test instrumentation installed or that similar problems were found on airplanes still on the production line at Everett. woohoo!
EMBQA From United States, joined Oct 2003, 8426 posts, RR: 19 Reply 6, posted (5 years 2 months 2 weeks 4 days 12 hours ago) and read 1005 times:
I was trying to land at BOS when this occurred. As we flew over to start our approach, it was still out on the runway, but by the time we landed and taxied up to terminal C she was being towed by on its way to North Cargo. Sadly I was flying back from a 3 week duty cover our Line MX base at JFK. It was a few weeks later that TWA 800 went down. The hotel we had used was the same hotel the victim's families had been placed in. The guy that replaced me said it was the most solemn and sad place he had ever seen.
[Edited 2004-09-20 02:31:45]
"It's not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog"
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