E-190 pax cabin temperature runaway

[RBF]

Hi,

Has anyone ever experienced this? Cabin temperature became uncontrollable with no messages presented on the EICAS. Everything was operating normally (set temp on ECS page showed 18°C but actual temp began rising all the way from about 23c to 34c. We tried switching the temp controller to "overhead" instead of Flight attendants with no result.

The temperature on the cockpit was operating normally and responding to our demands.

It was kind of a shocking experience to learn that there is no written procedure to handle this kind of situation. Captain was not very open to troubleshoot (I'd have descended to say fl250 and cancelled pack 2 right away)

We set the cockpit temp controller to the minimum in order to try to reduce the pax cabin temperature with no result. During descent as situation became increasingly preoccupying we tried cancelling pack 2 and engine bleed 2. We might have not given it enough time but temp stayed way higher than what it should have been.

Almost as soon as the problem began we also canceled the recirculation fans because we figured not having the hot air being blown forced lyrics would be a little bit better.

Any thoughts on this? We will be following up on this issue with maintenance.

[Piltdown Man]

Embraers do silly things with temperatures from time to time. It counts as NSB - normal system behaviour and generally get fixed with software, assuming nothing mechanical has failed. But until a new release is issued, you have to deal with what you have. Unfortunately, the ECS synoptic page will give you little to work with. What would I have done? I would have assumed Pack 2 has failed (because the problem was in the rear) and followed the checklist. That would have resulted in a descent to FL310. Had that not worked, tried Pack 1. I would have left the bleeds alone because all they do is supply the air; and you had enough of that. The next step would have been to annoy the bypass valves by altering the temperature. 12 o'clock is a good position to start with. Sometimes all they need is a nudge to get them working.

What is essential is that snags like this get written up and reported immediately because you can't fly an aircraft without temperature control.

PM

[Capn Bloggs]

I'm surprised there's no manual control...

[Piltdown Man]

CB - There is, sort if... There are zone temperature selectors in the CA panels forward and aft and another in the flight deck. The cabin selectors can be over-ridden by the pilots but then entire cabin becomes a single zone. The problem is that the system "automatically" seeks a target temperature and when doing so, doesn't tell you how it's being achieved.

PM