Coffee spilled on centre console
 

I have killed numerous laptops with the slightest drop of a miss-handled brew or beer. Has spillage on a centre console ever caused an incident / emergency or seriously messed up a flight?
Anyone here ever experienced a spillage and things had then "stopped working"?

Cheers.

Place I worked had press button telephone keyboards set into the control desks. On several occasions, cups of coffee were tipped onto them causing considerable concern!!

When I was stationed in RAF Germany in the late 80's, we were put on standby to receive a Monarch aircraft after one of the pilots had dropped a cup of coffee in his "gentlemen's area". A lot more serious.....

I'm aware of a case of case of coffee spilled onto the thrust levers of a citation. Lost thrust control. Had to switch off an engine to descend. :eek:

See " Fate is the Hunter" !

A DanAir 734 had an orange juice bath and mucho bits did stop working. (Luckily we had pilots on board and not systems operators:D)

Cabin crew were briefed that drinks had to be passed round the back of the pilot, arriving by the left ear of captain and right ear of FO, never over the centre console.

popstar I'm sure means to watch the FILM , "Fate is the Hunter". You will enjoy it and your question will be answered.

I know someone who spilled coffee near the gearshift of a mercedes (car) and he then couldn't shift above first gear for awhile.

Drenched!
 

We were sat on this almost full Ryanair at Dinard about to close doors when this older lady came on board in a fluster with a large bag and took a spare seat right up at the front next door to a young chap busy on his laptop. Her bag was stowed overhead but some way behind her. On take-off she was first for the drinks trolly and got a coffee in the usual large paper cup. She stood up holding it tightly in one hand but realised that her bag and money were behind her with the trolley between. Uncertain what to do she turned quickly and dropped, almost threw, the hot coffee all over the young man and his computer. Chaos ensued. Luckily the young man was not burnt but he was saturated as was his lap-top. We did feel sorry him sat in his wet clothes and his computer ruined, and often wondered how it all ended.

We got the same SOP after some incidents. However that is simply not practical on the 737, so we still get them over the centre pedestal. And yes, sometimes coffee gets spilled, but surprisingly just a few drops usually do not cause any harm, a full cup on the other hand does. On the A320 there is enough space on the flightdeck to pass the cups around the outside of the seat, on the A330 it never was an issue to begin with.

On a hot summers day the flightcrew left the windows open, advised the engineers who took over the aircraft of that fact and went home. The engineers did their usual 24 hour check, while a thunderstorm moved into the area and drove home without ever entering the aircraft when it began to rain. Was quite a ruckus to sort out who was responsible that everything electrical inside the flightdeck had to be replaced.

The tone of a Hadley Box was markedly improved by a soaking in a "Standard NATO":O

Drinks were banned anywhere near the console in my last ATC post. Numerous people spilled hot and cold drinks over things like the telephone and frequency pads. Usually it was the high sugar content which gummed the works up.

After the failure of the autopilot on a BOAC VC10, the engineering report put the cause down to a 'sugary nutriment' being found in the autopilot control panel on the centre pedestal. The cause was obvious!

E W


Very wise sir ... very wise! But I am going back 50yrs or so when elastictrickery was still regarded as a pretty cute idea where I worked!!

Oh Mr Z ...believe me when I say that some of the equipment I was working with was WAAAAY over 50 years old 😄. There were a lot of cigarette burns which would have been there for years....cigarettes and coffee used to be the principal food groups for controllers back in the day. My last task was to help introduce VERTICAL voice switching kit.....limited drinks allowed NEAR the kit . Actually it might have been easier to replace the spillee's 😜.....or use Tommee Tippee cups .

Many years back I was on j/s of a transatlantic 707

Extra crew were visiting cockpit and during the crowded melee a soft drink was spilled on the floor. Some minutes later the craft at FL390 suddenly developed a serious 'dutch roll' and the surprised crew did not get us s&l till 14000 ft

Was a long quiet hand flown all nighter after that....

Of course it will cause an emergency; you've got no ruddy coffee! :}

I'm in the IT/Telecomms industry these days, and food and drink are prohibited from many equipment rooms. I'm amazed that cockpit procedures have not tightened up.

On the other hand, in the days of jump-seating, I was given a full meal service in the cockpit on a number of occasions, which was a little tight on a DC9/MD80. Me sipping champagne on the way back from Copenhagen must have been torment for the crew.

And on the general "whoops" theme, I used to work for Mercury, who supplied radio pagers to the CAA, and the folks at LATCC were famous for dropping them down the toilet.

Windows Left Open.
 

Just curious Denti, which a/c type was that?

A 737 classic, and it was both windows left open...