I'd like to bet the problem would have been successfully solved in the olden days with a 3 man flight crew and a Flight Engineer addressing the problem.
Apologies for slight thread drift but talking about popped cbs ....
In the old 747 the problem was often a popped cb normally spotted by the Fight Engineer. Although one event not spotted resulted in doing 2 goarounds in BOS due inability to keep it on the centreline manually or autocoupled. It turned out the cb responsible for the circuit that locked out the outboard ailerons when flaps were up had popped and both approaches were flown using inboard ailerons only. They managed to get down on the third approach and only after parking did they spot the popped circuit breaker.
I seem to remember on the 747 if the nose gear did not come down using the alternate method the third method was for the flight engineer to go down into the lower equipment bay (lower 41, 707 term that remained) and unscrew screws that held it up, after a number had been unscrewed the weight would strip the remaining screws and the nose gear would fall down. I wonder if it was ever used?
To be fair to the LOT guys in the last 10 years I have not had a single flight deck circuit breaker pop on its own accord and I understand the offending circuit breaker was obscured by the first officer's briefcase. I bet the two pilots must be kicking themselves and thinking "if only".
Last edited by suninmyeyes; 4th Nov 2012 at 19:27.