Southern Air B742 near Anchorage on Sep 11th 2012, failure of all generators on board

Last Update: September 12, 2012 / 15:35:10 GMT/Zulu time

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Incident Facts

Date of incident
Sep 11, 2012

Classification
Incident

Airline
Southern Air

Flight number
9S-9783

Departure
Miami, United States

Destination
Anchorage, United States

Aircraft Registration
N783SA

Aircraft Type
Boeing 747-200

ICAO Type Designator
B742

A Southern Air Boeing 747-200 freighter, registration N783SA performing flight 9S-9783 (dep Sep 10th) from Miami,FL to Anchorage,AK (USA), had been enroute at FL400 and was in the initial descent towards Anchorage approximately 23 minutes prior to touch down when all four generators on board failed leaving the aircraft just with battery back up electric power. The loss of electricity also meant communication between aircraft and ATC was lost, other aircraft flying in the area however managed to relay transmissions from the aircraft to ATC and vice versa, ATC requested those relaying aircraft to inform the 742 crew they were cleared for a visual approach to runway 07L and cleared to land. About 10 minutes later, approximately 13 minutes prior to estimated touch down, direct communication was restored after the crew managed to get a APU running. The crew requested a long final to get the aircraft configured and opted for an ILS approach to runway 07L. The aircraft touched down safely, but blew all but two main and body gear tyres on the roll out due to the failure of the anti skid system and non-availability of thrust reversers and came to a stop disabled on the runway reporting blown tyres and hot brakes. Emergency services on stand by for the arrival immediately responded and cooled the brakes.

The runway was closed for about 12 hours as result until the 14 tyres were replaced, the aircraft was towed off the runway and the runway had been cleaned.

The NTSB opened an investigation into the occurrence reporting the aircraft suffered a complete electrical failure, the crew was flying on battery power only and nearly depleted the batteries. The NTSB is looking into what caused the failure of all four generators.

The airport reported the crew managed to get a backup generator online, but this did not power the anti-skid system.

The onward leg to Seoul (South Korea) was cancelled.
Incident Facts

Date of incident
Sep 11, 2012

Classification
Incident

Airline
Southern Air

Flight number
9S-9783

Departure
Miami, United States

Destination
Anchorage, United States

Aircraft Registration
N783SA

Aircraft Type
Boeing 747-200

ICAO Type Designator
B742

This article is published under license from Avherald.com. © of text by Avherald.com.
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