A LATAM Boeing 777-300 from Sao Paulo in Brazil to London Heathrow diverted and made an emergency overweight landing after it was forced to deploy its ram air turbine (RAT) because of a serious electrical failure.
The RAT is a small wind turbine used only when primary and auxiliary power sources are lost and can power vital systems such as flight controls and hydraulics.
The plane with 341 passengers and 16 crew on board landed safely at Belo Horizonte in Brazil on Decemeber 18 but all 12 main landing gear tires blew after the brakes overheated.
As they approached the airport, the crew told air traffic controllers they were “practically without electrical systems” and were unable to jettison fuel.
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The crew asked for confirmation of the runway length and that firefighters were standing by as they came in with the heavy fuel load.
A passenger reported a strong odor in the cabin and the captain announced the plane was diverting due to a serious electrical fault.
Another said that suddenly all lights and the inflight entertainment system went down, leaving only emergency lighting.
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The Aviation Herald reported over the weekend that the electrical problems started with the failure of the right back-up generator that tripped circuit breakers and left electrical conduits known as busses unpowered.
The auxiliary power unit and left backup generator remained active but all systems lost power except a few connected to standby busses
The website that the only systems that remained powered were a VHF radio, emergency lighting, the left control display unit and the left inboard and outboard upper center displays.
The RAT powered the first officer’s displays.
LATAM later confirmed the failure had been in power distribution rather than generation and the causes were under investigation by Brazil’s accident investigator, CENIPA.
“After landing, when the crew shut the engines down, power returned, as result the cameras came back online and the crew could see that there was no fire on the landing gear or excessive heat on the brakes, hence the crew queried the need for an emergency evacuation as suggested by emergency services,’’ The Aviation Herald said. “The captain wanted to avoid an emergency evacuation unless really necessary as the emergency evacuation could have resulted in injuries.”
Read the transcript of the conversation between the pilots and air traffic control on The Aviation Herald.
LATAM Airlines Group is Latin America’s leading airline group services about 140 destinations in 25 countries.
It operates in six domestic markets in Latin America: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru, in addition to its international operations in Latin America, Europe, the United States, the Caribbean, Oceania and Africa.
The company employs more than 43,000 people worldwide, operating more than 1,200 flights per day and transporting 67 million passengers per year.
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