Yeah Chuck,
But there's no history on his alter ego sinkrate47 since it only has 2 posts!
Why some posters feel they have to invent "sock puppets" to support themselves or quote people dishonestly without attribute and in association with other's verb-age is beyond me.
Back to the topic. The 747-200, in the 80's had a known habit of producing occasional false fire warnings. The procedure, of course, was to pull the power back on that thrust lever hoping the reduced thrust/bleed would reduce pressure/temp in the cowling "fire loops" if that was indeed the problem. If that worked and the fire light went out, a return to airfield was in order. An engine inspection and test runs would be performed. If nothing turned up in the way of a culprit, things would progress to considering a sensor system fault. The way to keep the airplane flying was to "re-rack" the firecards above and behind the engineer's circuit breaker wall on the way to the right UL service door. The aircraft would be signed off as ground checks O.K. and off you go. But the problem could recur; it was a gamble. A persistent history of write ups could go on like this for several days until mtc finally changed enough components to rectify the problem.
This is not to suggest that's what happened in Columbia. Investigators will have to secure copies of the logbook pages that mtc is required by FAA to keep on file. If they are missing then, you have a real case for something fishy going on. Whoot Gibson's log pages were not found for years.
