BOEING 757-223American Airlines, Inc.

Window: 09:58:57–13:43:00 · basis: critical phases in the extracted recorder events (approximate). Candidate non-pertinent lines below are a first reading for the investigator, not a finding; “@” marks the Board's own non-pertinent-word notation.

• 11:45:21FO“let me just get through here first before I activate that. that’s not going to be good enough for us anyway.”
• 11:45:36FO“probably wouldn’t have been that bad big of a deal anyway but still.”
• 11:51:36FO“that has to be— that has to be—. it’s not being charged we do know that.”
• 11:51:51CA“yeah because there are a couple of last minute items but.”
• 11:51:56FO“which is gonna show what what does like when we put the airplane to bed at night. what drains the battery? we want to make sure we don’t have any of those things on. you know.”
• 11:52:12FO“for example when you when you put the aircraft to bed.”
• 11:52:34CA“no no way it wouldn’t make any difference.”
• 11:53:31CA“I’ll just show him these and say what’s the deal.”
• 11:53:41FO“just talk to maintenance and say hey tell us why the battery is being discharged that it’s been operating at this time now for an hour and a half. make us feel good. make us feel warm and fuzzy.”
• 11:55:00FO“so much for these nice relaxing long legs.”
• 11:55:15FO“I don’t know I’m thinking worst case scenario like like we said. losing all of this.”
• 11:55:21FO“and nothing in that whole well it’s a pain in the butt but it won’t ruin our day. **. even then I only think we’re going to lose this and not this.”
• 11:55:38FO“I looked up here I specifically looked up here and it looked like it was working normally. I didn’t notice anything different.”
• 11:56:13CA“we lost all that #. but when we went to battery we got it all back.”
• 11:56:23CA“and— and we got it back and the battery is not dis— uh.”
• 11:56:26FO“understand if the battery dies and if we go back to auto then— if the battery dies we lose all this. you agree with that right?”
• 11:56:59FO“so if we do— worst case scenario if we lose the battery go back to auto then we’ll at least get this stuff back.”
• 11:57:09CA“yeah it depends on what— what bus is failed. but I agree with you.”
• 11:57:12FO“I understand when this when this problem initially happened when it initially happened we got these indications. would you agree with that?”
• 11:57:22CA“uh I agree. I do agree with that.”
• 11:57:58CA“no I don’t see it so these will probably be working right now.”
• 11:58:01CA“because maybe we could diagnose something but we don’t want to # with it too much.”
• 11:58:48FO“I don’t know what caused that. that’s a whole ‘nother ballgame. #. I forgot about that.”
• 12:00:28FO“did you try to explain all that we had what we got what initially happened?”
• 12:00:49FO“it was this right here except it was actually it was it was— hold on a second. I’ll tell you exactly what the uh wording was.”
• 12:01:16CA“well where was it on the on the list you showed me down somewhere or what exact— uhh.”
• 12:02:13FO“and at that * the H-D-G would be inoperative.”
• 12:03:37FO“yup. they’re still they’re still flying off the AC bus.”
• 12:03:50CA“yeah. that is correct...yeah we’re not even using DC but the DC backup has failed.”
• 12:04:40CA“that correct...which is connected to the left.”
• 12:04:50FO“right. so that shouldn’t change. nothing that— the IRS is not a problem...I hope I hope I hope. we’ve * these aren’t gonna work. the IRSs better work.”
• 12:06:00CA“that’s correct. so that is not the case now. some other bus—.”
• 12:06:08CA“I er uh I would guess I would guess it’d be left DC.”
• 12:07:28OB“hey you guys must be famished up there.”
• 12:07:33CA“oh man we’re still working with this problem that’s it’s kind of stabilized but uh it’s weirding us out. we need a beer. [sound of laughter] Heineken.”
• 12:07:45CA“yeah alright we’ll go man. here we go.”
• 12:07:53OB“honey nut uh Honey Nut Cheerios with uh blueberries and a banana with a yogurt.”
• 12:08:03CA“what do you want to drink with breakfast?”
• 12:08:21CA“that just weirds me out. we lost a lot of stuff that weren’t even on the stand by busses.”
• 12:08:24FO“we lost a lot of stuff that wasn’t even on the stand by busses. so what else could we possibly have lost?”
• 12:09:12FO“as if I’m not asking enough already.”
• 12:09:14CA“eh it’s good review. good review of everything.”
• 12:09:16FO“I don’t want a re— I don’t want a review I want to get this thing fixed.”
• 12:09:19CA“do you see any CBs on your side?”
• 12:09:22FO“it’s hard for me to see all of em.”
• 12:09:30CA“food. you got the airplane.”
• 12:12:58OB“okay but we have the cart pulled and that’s that.”
• 12:13:42FO“better not * with that thing on my lap.”
• 12:14:09FO“I’m good either way. whatever you want.”
• 12:15:38CA“did you eat your fruit? I’m not a fruit man.”
• 12:15:42FO“thank you oh I love fruit. good stuff.”
• 12:23:14FO“that’s the only thing that makes sense.”
• 12:24:27FO“I’ll probably mimic over here just in case.”
• 12:24:53CA“I’m ashamed of myself for uh I forgot about that.”
• 12:25:44FO“my bladder’s not gonna make it all the way.”
• 12:25:47FO“my bladder’s not gonna make it all the way.”
• 12:25:51FO“I just hate to leave you— oh #—”
• 12:26:41FO“there we go. we’ve got a RAT.”
• 12:26:48FO“we’re gonna RAT that # ** # # #. ***.”
• 12:28:27FO“that’s a bad what chu talkin’ bout? talkin’ bout Shaft...speakin of which Shaft is dead. @ he be dead.”@

Delivery and physiological notes the transcribers added in brackets, plus # expletives. 101 words are marked unintelligible (*).

• #11:55:02CA“oh # um the only thing with everything working our hydraulics and electrics are working so we shouldn’t have any trouble with the gear and the flaps.”
• #11:56:13CA“we lost all that #. but when we went to battery we got it all back.”
• #11:58:01CA“because maybe we could diagnose something but we don’t want to # with it too much.”
• #11:58:48FO“I don’t know what caused that. that’s a whole ‘nother ballgame. #. I forgot about that.”
• #12:06:52FO“yeah we had some lights up here we had like uh pitot aux light. those lights there. we had all kinds of # that were— you know that reminds me. CHI08IA292”
• sound similar to cockpit door closing12:13:11◦“[sound similar to cockpit door closing]”
• #12:20:43CA“just for giggles uh #.”
• #12:23:00CA“that just blows the # out of me. I can’t—only thing I can think of is an air ground logic problem. CHI08IA292”
• #12:25:49CA“oh # no I gotta leak. CHI08IA292”
• #12:25:51FO“I just hate to leave you— oh #—”
• #12:26:46CA“we’re gonna RAT that #.”
• #12:26:48FO“we’re gonna RAT that # ** # # #. ***.”
• #12:26:52CA“# # RAT man.”
• #12:28:23FO“that’s one # battery. [sound of laughter]”
• #12:28:26CA“that’s a bad #”
• #12:30:43CA“no that maintenance panel— # I don’t know.”
• #12:31:25CA“what’s the little guy on Beavis and Butthead saying? oh my #. [sound of laughter]”
• #12:32:00CA“yeah no # if something goes wrong. I’m gonna talk to the folks. be right back.”
• #12:34:01CA“I'm gonna uh call dispatch when we get over north of Chicago. tell ‘em this airplane is # up and to plan on another piece of equipment and uh they might not even know about it.”
• #12:38:17CA“I'll be #. how bout that. you learn # every day in this airplane. the uh”
• #12:41:42CA“normally carry four but uh. ah # I gotta write this # up.”
• #12:41:52CA“# five pager.”
• #12:43:28CA“uh #. there it is right there.”
• sound similar to cockpit door closing12:49:13◦“[sound similar to cockpit door closing]”
• +39 more

• 186 s12:15:42 → 12:18:48in sterile window
• 147 s11:48:47 → 11:51:14in sterile window
• 108 s12:32:13 → 12:34:01in sterile window
• 96 s11:47:06 → 11:48:42in sterile window
• 94 s12:21:26 → 12:23:00in sterile window
• 91 s12:36:46 → 12:38:17in sterile window
• 89 s12:14:09 → 12:15:38in sterile window
• 79 s12:26:53 → 12:28:12in sterile window

Hedged or questioning lines from one pilot in the critical window, with the other pilot’s next words.

• 11:53:58CA“the only thing I can think of as a conclusion to all this is that our standby AC and standby DC are powered by normal AC courtesy of the inverter period. because the because the battery’s not burned out. it’s been more than thirty minutes.”
  → 11:54:26FO“I thought you were forcing the battery to work. that’s the whole i—that’s the whole point of this switch is to force the battery to power to the standby DC.”
• 11:54:26FO“I thought you were forcing the battery to work. that’s the whole i—that’s the whole point of this switch is to force the battery to power to the standby DC.”
  → 11:54:38CA“yeah but you know what? it may be something to do with air ground logic because when you’re on the ground I know you go to battery position that tests the standby system but we’re airborne now. I need a beer.”
• 11:56:18FO“right so we lost all this stuff. I think we lost all this stuff right here. CHI08IA292”
  → 11:56:23CA“and— and we got it back and the battery is not dis— uh.”
• 11:56:42FO“if the battery dies on us yeah if the battery dies we lose all this. but this I think was the problem. when we got this standby bus light it was really this that was inoperative the standby DC bus not the standby AC bus.”
  → 11:56:58CA“yeah.”
• 11:59:29CA“it looks like it’s holding the uh the Mach pretty well.”
  → 11:59:48FO“might just all go away.”
• 12:03:48FO“they do that because we’re forcing the battery to power—they’re they’re what they’re saying is you can’t use DC to power these two IRSs because that would be too much drain on the IRS so they’re just using this the third IRS to power you know off the battery. that’s what they’re saying. CHI08IA292”
  → 12:03:50CA“yeah. that is correct...yeah we’re not even using DC but the DC backup has failed.”
• 12:04:31FO“yeah you forced the battery to power the stand by DC stand by AC. you do not force these IRSs to power off anything then what they were already powering off of. this is powering off the left this is powering off the right bus. this powers off the center which is of course is through the left.”
  → 12:04:40CA“that correct...which is connected to the left.”
• 12:06:08FO“I’m just wondering what the hell.”
  → 12:06:14CA“and left AC are giving coming up and giving me uh stand by AC and standby DC.”
• 12:07:13FO“yeah see that’s weird. I wish I had a snapshot of all the things we lost. cause we lost some of these pitots some of these aux pitots and that’s not on either one of these busses.”
  → 12:07:23CA“yeah...yeah.”
• 12:08:32FO“what bus? I mean we know we lost one of the stand buses or this light wouldn’t have come on. I know that. but we lost something else. oh where is it where does it show what the ground what’s on the ground service bus.”
  → 12:08:35CA“everything—.”
• 12:19:48CA“marvelous I like. see if this’ll uh...huh...so it stays reset so one of our uh—.”
  → 12:20:12FO“yeah we lost that because we lost that center uh center—”
• 12:34:35CA“yeah when we were sitting at the gate I said what's I don't know if you heard me say it but sitting at the gate I said what's wrong here because all these were down here and let's see what else did we see. it was it was completely tumbled and flagged. and this was—.”
  → 12:34:42FO“yeah I heard you.”
• 12:41:05CA“what's that?”
  → 12:41:07FO“I'm scared. I need a hug from her.”
• 12:42:52CA“what's that?”
  → 12:42:53FO“why anyone's waiting with the seatbelt sign on.”
• 12:46:09FO“we'll wait ‘til we have— it probably works now because I don't see any light or any messages but if we lose the DC bus I mean the stand by bus we don't have any ILS...I take that back. stand by AC bus.”
  → 12:46:25CA“now see this is one oh eight two earlier now it's sixteen six. so it picked a VOR to do our triangulations.”
• 12:57:20CA“what's that?”
  → 12:57:21FO“try to figure out what bus we're missing now.”
• 13:01:14FO“well if this is all we lose I'm not too terribly upset. it looks like it's pretty clear weather between here and uh New York.”
  → 13:01:23CA“and see that l— we lost our uh we got a air ground system logic and everything on the captain's side is failed. my altimeter the stand by horizon—.”
• 13:05:59FO“it uh well huh let's see it was two and a half hours where it's been on battery.”
  → 13:06:05CA“yeah and then that's when I made my PA and then a couple minutes later we got our food so I'm gonna call it uh # well everything's stable. I'm gonna write some more stuff down. you comfortable with everything?”
• 13:08:42FO“now wait a minute you're saying these lights are inoperative now?”
  → 13:08:45CA“well— well the test is—.”
• 13:10:12CA“okay situation now I think we've lost our standby AC and DC. but with all other buses powered I think we're doing okay. we uh we got hydraulics we got AC power. spar valve wing anti-ice.”
  → 13:11:10FO“hold on girl.”
• 13:12:53CA“you know what? we lost the ILS head. we can't shoot an approach...lost the head that's not working we can't do any ILSs.”
  → 13:13:16FO“that's what yeah * I knew we lost the center ILS that's why I was asking that. that sucks.”
• 13:13:21CA“and now we lost the controller that controls we lost all ILSs now. I think I've seen about enough. I don't know if we got our— let's see... CHI08IA292”
  → 13:13:44FO“that's just cabin #.”
• 13:22:50FO“and I think he wants us to go direct GHOST.”
  → 13:22:52CA“uh.”
• 13:30:44FO“I'm afraid I've gotta get some flaps out too here but I don't know what the speeds are.”
  → 13:30:49CA“I don't know about our indication here. one thirty two. one three two.”
• 13:30:49CA“I don't know about our indication here. one thirty two. one three two.”
  → 13:31:04FO“no.”
• 13:33:39CA“one thirty one set and crosschecked. uh not sure if we're gonna get flaps. uhh we'll see about that. we should. it looks like we've got electrical control. CHI08IA292”
  → 13:33:50FO“I tell you what. gimme flaps. gimme flaps one.”
• 13:34:51FO“what the heck?”
  → 13:34:53CA“let's go to one **.”
• 13:38:14CA“is that okay? I'll try more trim.”
  → 13:38:27FO“you know what? I feel a little better. I feel— right now right now it's controllable.”
• 13:38:43FO“I don't know what the uh speed is for flaps fifteen.”
  → 13:38:46CA“flaps fifteen uh that'll be about uh about uh five knots slower than you're doing right now.”
• 13:39:52CA“what's that?”
  → 13:39:53FO“we're close to being an emergency right now. we don't have trim.”

• 12:54:38◦[sound similar to master caution tones]
  → 0 s later: 12:54:38FO“#.”
• 12:56:17◦[sound similar to master caution]
  → no crew words within 5 s
• 12:56:21◦[sound similar to master caution]
  → no crew words within 5 s
• 13:16:11◦understand electrical problems. uh and you're diverting to O'Hare. are you declaring an emergency?
  → 5 s later: 13:16:16CA“no we are not at the present time.”
• 13:17:33◦[sound similar to master caution tones]
  → 2 s later: 13:17:35CA“okay a degraded autopilot condition exists. you click it again and that'll go away.”
• 13:18:53◦[sound similar to master caution tones]
  → 4 s later: 13:18:57FO“the autopilot is shot to heck.”
• 13:40:00!twenty five hundred.
  → 1 s later: 13:40:01FO“I think you should.”
• 13:41:07!one thousand.
  → 3 s later: 13:41:10FO“this is two two right? two two right? CHI08IA292”
• 13:41:28!five hundred.
  → 2 s later: 13:41:30CA“disregard keep going down.”
• 13:41:30!too low gear. [repeats until touchdown]
  → 0 s later: 13:41:30CA“disregard keep going down.”

• 12:00:35CA“yeah yeah I got everything everything written down. I tell you one more thing we can put down what was that exact uh top of the EICAS message that we got?”
• 12:07:32CA“uh pardon me?”
• 12:19:17CA“is that PMM?”
• 12:43:16CA“JFK?”
• 12:44:55CA“um this is a little bit odd. you you remember what this says? in the MD eighty? it says NAV. you know your two over here?”
• 12:49:10CA“how's everything going back there?”
• 12:53:07FO“that's Aries that's a ram isn't it?”
• 13:05:21CA“yeah that's true but now for example if we have a hydraulic problem we're gonna have to belly this airplane in because we can't get the gear down. you got to have the battery to get the gear down. you must. so our backup items are not not looking good. see I'm tumbled here. I'm dead over here. I'm dead meat. the baro is working here so that's looking good. these are good but none of these are good. so uh how— would you say we've been in the flight for about uh three hours?”
• 13:07:10CA“yeah. correct uh forty two hundred scattered seven thousand scattered twenty five thousand scattered uh twenty three and twelve. okay so the autopilot's working?”
• 13:09:58FO“yeah and then I got this landing gear monitor. I mean what's all this what's all that about?”
• 13:26:30FO“the flight attendants know what we're doing? Mark?”
• 13:36:12CA“yeah it is. not getting climate control either. gettin' any trim? turn inbound go ahead and turn inbound on final. I'll tell him we're doing it...getting any trim?”

“Not in transcript” never means “not said”: a line may be unintelligible, or the recording may not cover that phase.