Originally Posted by
B2N2
That first comment is very interesting.
Did they dispatch with the right IDG inop?
Not sure but you can do 180 minute ETOPS on the Triple with an IDG MEL'ed under U.S. rules. But you need the APU generator.
And that triple bus isolation on approach is famous for odd glitches with a generator out in my experience. I remember hours of ground school explanations of what
should happen if you lost a remaining generator above 1500 feet, below 1500 feet, on alternate Thursday's etc. Bus tie locked open, closed, whatever.
Since they had one RA and no GS maybe the bus isolation did not go well on the first approach and a BTB stayed in ISLN after the missed. Of course, if they had some more MEL's on the GS, LOC and RA's as some have suggested on other forums it wouldn't have helped.
From a media report:
"Basically, we've got a single source radio altimeter, we have a Traffic Collision and Avoidance System failure", radioed in the Commander of the Air India 777-300 to Air Traffic Control in New York. "No Auto-land, no windshear systems, (no) Auto Speed Brake and the Auxillary Power Unit is unserviceable as well," he added.
And that was not all. All three Instrument Landing System (ILS) receivers on board the jet malfunctioned. ILS is the key system that helps pilots align the jet with the runway during landing in any weather condition, day and night.
https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/as-m...-board-1917842
Listening to the tapes, my guess is that the pilots have spent much more time in New York than the controller has spent in India. It sounds to me like the controller couldn't understand a lot of the rapid AI 101 dialog but he was doing a great job trying. Some of us remember the first time we went into DEL or BOM trying to decipher thick Punjabi or Marathi accents. Or going into JFK listening to a Bronx accent for that matter.