SIA A380 power problem at SIN
 

A pax on board SQ 380 just e-mails me to report power problem just before take-off roll at Singapore. He says "there was silence" after all engines shut down and a/c now being towed back to stand.

It's a rather new type and perhaps some issues arose that required pilot to do a specific procedure, ,..we can't know anything at this time.

but, believe me they would never take a non-conservative action,...this may amount to something very routine,...they have the best guys in the world writing their procedures,...and sometimes what seems scary or like an 'emergency' to a passenger is a routine protocol for a specific airplane or airline,..also the towing MAY be because it's a 380 million dollar airplane,...I'd pay for a tow myself:\

PA

Crew asked Ground to taxi somewhere to do a reset. Sounds like a computer problem.

When the 744 was introduced it was not uncommon to have to take all electrical power off the aircraft in order to reboot all systems. May seem a little disturbing for pax but, in my experience, we'd no related incidents.

Works for the -800 also.

Probably a little more complicated than a Control-Alt-Delete as well.

I was on a A320 taxing for takeoff, when the Captain announced that we were going to pull off the taxi way, park and shut down the engines. Why, because the computers was telling him the engines were not running. Engines were shut down, we waited about three (3) minutes engines were restarted and we continued taxing to the runway.

probably software from microshaft!

Not if it only took 3 mins to reboot.

Why make a mountain out of a molehill? This is a non-event.
Cycle aircraft power to reset the computers.

I could imagine the engineers on the radio "is it plugged in??" "have u tried turning it off and on again??" :}

Windows 7??

From WarmNuts, Reply #11:
Modern aircraft use lots of networked computers. Sometimes, if one computer hangs itself up, it is sufficient to cycle this computer's CB to let it reboot. Sometimes though the data bus system goes out of sync. In these cases it helps to power down the complete aircraft, wait for a few minutes and then switch on power again to let all computers reboot at the same time. I had this happen from time to time with B757, B767, B737NG, A300-600, A320 and MD-11 aircraft.
In this regard the whole thing is a complete non-event.

reboot in flight?
 

As a passenger, I will happily trust pilots to exercise their skills. If someone tells me that shutting down all engines to reboot the computers while aircraft is on ground is a non-event, then so be it.

Please, reassure me that either these computer problems don't occur in flight, or if they do, that there are alternatives to shutting down all engines:uhoh:

Heh, heh ...
 

I was on an Air Canada Embraer 190 going from Montreal to St. Johns in early summer 2006. We boarded and sat in the plane on the tarmac for 2+ hours straight, while the flight crew rebooted the whole plane 5 times. It was well after sunset, and it of course involved shutting down everything. I mean, up to total darkness. And then they turned the systems on, one by one. Before every one restart they apologised on the PA, more and more sheepishly every time. :) Before the last, 5-th restart they announced that the company engineers had boarded the craft and did the restart themselves.

One of the bigger problems was that during the first shutdown, all air conditioning was turned off. And it wasn't restarted until after the last, successful attempt. About 1 hour into the ordeal it had become REALLY hot in the cabin and the cabin crew finally realised that it would be a good idea to open front and back doors to create a draft. It helped immensely.

What surprised me was that the people on the plane took it COMPLETELY calmly. Absolutely noone complained. At least not about the restarts and possible suspicions about airworthiness. I can understand why *I* was calm - it was a third leg for me that day, one of which was an intercontinental flight. I hadn't had any real sleep for about 25hrs at that point. I coulnd't care about anything.

The only thing that really annoyed me at the time was that every now and then, cabin crew walked by and announced (at least 4 times) that I shouldn't have my seat reclined, that we are going to take off any minute now and that seat must be upright during takeoff. All that during the time when it was extremely obvious that every restart takes 15+ minutes at the minimum (you can see how slowly the systems go off, one by one, and come back alive one by one) and that we are not going to fly any time soon. I understand well that during the takeoff I need to be upright. But at the time their constant nagging appeared so ridiculously pointless. I admit that I lowered it down again a number of seconds after every such conversation. And yes, I did set it upright for takeoff.

Anyway. Air Canada was a launch customer for those Embraers and had acquired their first examples only few months prior. So it didn't really surprise me. But 2hrs+ and 5 restarts was kind of pushing it. :E

I remember that Italy won the world cup that night (the roar for the final goal was immense in the Montreal terminal). And it was the evening flight. For anyone wishing to verify the story.

1 restart? That's nothing!

Nah !! Prolly Windows ME.

The only operating system to be named after a debilitating illness :rolleyes:

I can't imagine what would happen if microshaft supplies avionics software. Imagine seeing the blue screen of death at 37 000 ft on your PFD and ND ! :eek: