I spoke yesterday to an engineer who'd been reading the initial tech log writeups on this incident (pages and pages of them, he said). As far as I can tell so far:
1. Drain blocked in galley. Overflows.
2. Crack underneath, allows liquid to get through.
3. Generator/electrical/contactor control panel beneath this area.
4. Entire electrical system taken out (all generators, etc).
5. Crew on standby intruments and battery power only.
Some additional things about the 747-400.
1. The APU will run inflight, as long as it is started on the ground.
2. It
cannot be started inflight. A relay controlled by air/ground logic prevents power being applied to the APU door actuator inflight.
I'm not sure whether the crew were VMC or IMC or day or night at the time, but flying on battery with only the standby AI, standby airspeed, and standby altimeter is not easy in the 747-400 (particularly the older model standby instruments - the newer standby AI is a lot better).
If the battery runs out, you've then also lost attitude reference. Somewhat of a problem if you're IMC at the time, or at night. So yes, the situation would've been extremely serious if they were in the middle of nowhere.
I too would like to know how Dick Smith's hand-held GPS tells him which way is up and gives him attitude reference. Does it have a mini-gyro in it? I've never heard of such a thing! Why aren't they on all aeroplanes?
