EMB 145 locked elevator

[azdriver]

Good afternoon,

Recently my airline experience various elevator loss of control during flight apparently due to residual anti ice fluid that in some particular condition expanded and block totally the elevator movement.

Embraer in September 2001 issued a recommendation about the inspection of flight surface due to worries of excessive residual anti ice powder that could cause flight control related problems. It seems like this recomm. never follow thru the maintenance program of my airline; now, after the pilot union reps met with the fleet manager, flight safety manager and maintenance manager the only thing they could say to justify this was that this occurrence happen with many 145 operator in Europe. Now, after we specifically requested the names of those operators they were very reluctant to provide the names.

My question for 145 pilots is: did this happen in your airline? If yes what are the details?

Thanks in advance

azdriver

 

[labbats]

The only elevator problems I've aware of are from excessive speed before trimming after TO.

 

[NewBlue]

What is anti ice powder?

 

[azdriver]

What is anti ice powder?

It is the residual anti/de ice fluid that dries up and becomes powder and when rehydrated becomes gel. In all 3 cases this frozen contamination, a gel with a high freezing point, caused the restricted movement. The gel was Type IV fluid residue that rehydrated during takeoff or climbout in rain.


ciao

 

[Nova]

My question for 145 pilots is: did this happen in your airline? If yes what are the details?

After 9 years of operation in the winters of the Northeast I don't think ExpressJet has had any incidents along these lines. You'd think with as much anti-ice fluid our aircraft have seen in that time that we would have run across this situation. If we have, I haven't heard about it. Anyone?

 

[yasir1212]

The only elevator problems I've aware of are from excessive speed before trimming after TO.

Yup, me too. The 160 knot limit.

 

[FlyChicaga]

I have heard about this situation, but I haven't met anyone who has experienced it. Nor have I heard about it happening at our company.

 

[jtf]

I was talking to a 145 CA last week (one of the USAirways Express carriers) and he told me he had a problem with the elevator initially after flying briefly through moderate icing between layers during arrival. He said when he shut off the autopilot he felt the nose go down hard and had to use a lot of back pressure, including full aft trim to keep the nose up enough to land. The autopilot didn't kick itself off so he thouht it was strange that the AP didn't due to the amount of force required. They saw some ice on the ground and got it all deiced before leaving. Then after going through just very light icing on the way back out the same thing happened when he turned the AP off during the next arrival. He said there was no way it was icing again and grounded the airplane until mx could figure out the problem. He said after the second time he was pretty sure it wasn't ice doing it the first time either since it felt the same. I haven't heard any final verdict about what caused it. I've felt increased elevator pressures only once (in 3 NE winters) due to icing and it didn't require full aft trim. Maybe this was one of the elusive deicing powder problems. I post again if I hear anything more about that specific case.

 

[jtf]

In a semi-related case- has anyone had any problems with the rudders locking up on short final? I heard this happend recently to a different CA at my company and I was told that the Yaw Damper was definitely NOT left on. The YD can be pushed through fairly easily and usually is accompanied by an AP fail message (not that I would have ever forgotten to turn of the YD before landing and then overpowered it on the ground). The CA said he pressed so hard that he broke the cable on the seat lumbar support and that finally the hydraulics released into manual reversion at the last second so he could get the nose straightened before landing. He said mx couldn't find any computer faults, any broken switches, or replicate it in any test conditions. He said they talked to tech reps and nobody knew what could cause that. The EMB145 was test flown and the problem wasn't replicated there either- so back into service it went without anyone knowing what really caused the problem. Sounds kind of spooky to me.