UAL Diverts w/ no power

[ComplexHiAv8r]

Trying to learn some more on this one.

Friday night UAL 1218 DEN-IAD (757-200) diverted to MCI

About an hour out of Denver the flight lost electrical power, except for emergency cabin lighting. Captain announced that they we only had the APU for power and were diverting to Kansas City. A 3 hour delay and they used another 757 to continue the flight to IAD. It was my understanding the same crew flew that flight.

I thought the 757 had a backup system, or maybe one was inop for the flight. Is is common practice to depart if one backup is inop?

With something like this, do they have the crew continue a trip? For the pro's on here is that the normal proceedure?

All I can find is the tracking for it.

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/U...054Z/KDEN/KIAD

[I_Money]

I think you need to be more specific - power being electrical power, or power being thrust.

The former is not a huge deal, the later gets a bit more exciting.

[ComplexHiAv8r]

All I know is that all power was off in the cabin except for the emergancy lighting. Captain said they only had power from the APU. I am guessing no problems with thrust.

[kellwolf]

Not sure about the 757, but on the CRJ, if you've got the APU, you've got all the AC and DC power as well. Sounds to me like something got way blown out of porportion by the press again.

[I_Money]

Originally Posted by ComplexHiAv8r

All I know is that all power was off in the cabin except for the emergancy lighting. Captain said they only had power from the APU. I am guessing no problems with thrust.

I am guessing someone is too dim (excuse the pun) to realise that the electrical power comes from the engines too!!!!

On a totally seperate note:
Did you know on the second heart transplant in the world no one saw the new heart start beating for the first time as they had a power outage during that breif moment!

[Doug Taylor]

Probably the three guys to ask would be B767Driver, MDPilot and DE727UPS as they've got extensive experience on the 757/767 series.

[Looking4Lower]

I was a passenger on that flight (coming back from a crew swap after a lonnnnng day).

The cabin power kicked off halfway thru the flight, and like you said, the CA announced that had lost our generators and that we were on APU power. Diverted to MCI just fine, on our way again with a different 757 after an hour or two. The flight crew continued the trip, but one or two F/As swapped out (I assume due to duty issues).

I was thinking about cornering one of the pilots and asking about what happened, but I was WAY too tired to really care at that point and I didn't want to bother them. Seemed like they did a fine job.

I only saw the first half of Nacho Libre when this tragedy occurred, so I was forced to switch to my own backup system (iPod) in the darkness of the cabin that fateful night. Just as well, since the movie sucked. Bad.

[MDPilot]

An educated guess would be that the aircraft was dispatched with one engine driven generator out on MCO. This would mean operating the flight with the other engine generator and the APU generator with the APU running the entire flight. When the other engine generator failed, the electrical system load shed the cabin and galley electrical items, leaving the APU generator to power the rest of the airplane (cockpit and other essential items.) Divert into alternate airport followed.

[ComplexHiAv8r]

Originally Posted by Looking4Lower

I was a passenger on that flight (coming back from a crew swap after a lonnnnng day).

Did you notice the black suits on the aircraft?? That is how I learned of the incident...

NOTHING in the news, as far as I know.

[Looking4Lower]

Originally Posted by ComplexHiAv8r

Did you notice the black suits on the aircraft??

These guys?

[ComplexHiAv8r]

No not them (or maybe so, but you don't remember now).

Nope there was a group of higher ups from the Commerence Department and Customs on the flight, one being my brother.