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American Airlines Flight 268 9/22/08

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From looking at the report the problem seems to be with standby buses not the main AC. Normally the main AC (left and right) supplies the standby AC and DC buses. Moving the standby power selector to battery position allows the battery to supply these buses and batt/hot batt of course, but it also takes the battery chargers out of the loop. This how the 767 works and I would think the 757 is similar. The apu wouldn't help in this case.
 
why they no start apu?


If there was a fault of some kind the prevented the buses in question from getting power then adding another generator to the equation would'nt matter. Sounds to me like they had a problem that was one of those "we don't have a procedure for that" kind of things.

I will agree that flying past airports that you can easily land at while having an emergency is stupid, but what if you don't know if your having an emergency?

I have a hard time believing that they KNOWINGLY flew past ORD, etc etc thinking that things were going south on them. I think by the time they realized that the problem that had was not one that they were able to solve it was too late and they did what they could.

The best part: EVERYONE WAS FINE!
 
Boeing should have had a way of monitoring battery voltage on the 757. They would have diverted earlier if they knew for sure they were losing essential busses.
 
You can pull up battery voltage via a button on the accessory panel. It displays on the lower EICAS.

I'm not sure you can do it in flight but they are coming out with a procedure to check battery volts after the failure of the APU to start (different issue) so that's the only way to check volts.

Up till now, AA forbade you to use those buttons on the acc. panel. Guess you have to call a mech. anytime the APU won't start on the first go... TC
 
I find it hard to believe that a major airline would continue a long distance flight relying on a battery charger - especially one that flies ETOPS. We are missing some key facts here.
 
I find it hard to believe that a major airline would continue a long distance flight relying on a battery charger - especially one that flies ETOPS. We are missing some key facts here.

The only time during ETOPS there is any drain on the battery is if standby power is placed in bat position. You would have to lose both generators plus the hydraulic driven generator to degrade to that point or have the K106 relay fail as happened to AA last month.
 
So cliff notes for someone who has 0.0 time in a Boeing.

Do you think the crew KNEW that they were using only batteries to power these buses? As in we are on battery power up here?
 
So cliff notes for someone who has 0.0 time in a Boeing.

Do you think the crew KNEW that they were using only batteries to power these buses? As in we are on battery power up here?

Knowing the crew, I'm guessing they knew the battery was discharging but at a very slow (but unknown) rate. The busses that didn't fail were still being powered off the engine generators.

All conjecture on my part, though. TC
 

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