Beverage Spill in Cockpit
 

On twitter there is an AA pilot with a following of over 4000, who posts comments, pictures, etc. (see @Chris_Manno)

Recently he posted a picture of a mug of coffee, and even showed that the BIG planes' cockpits have cup holders for this.

https://t.co/VwLU9Acawy

My question to him was whether an accidental spill on all those instruments and electronics will not be a problem, and he sort of brushed off my question with "Beverages have been on the flight deck for the last 50 years. Have you heard of any problems?"

Does anyone have a serious and more informative answer to this?

When rolling out a new nationwide radio system for the police in Kuwait in the 1990s, cops began bringing in their cars with complaints that the radio wasn't working.
It was inevitably down to them resting and splikking cans of Pepsi etc on the radio control head (the bit with all the buttons and displays etc). And they just weren't worth repairing. This behaviour was soon modified when the Ministry started charging them with the cost of a new control head!

What coffee in the pic?
 

I only saw Starbucks...:yuk:

On Airbus aircraft it has been replaced with a wine glass holder.

Much more civilised!

Some years ago, I was called to a 757 due to problems tuning the VHF. On removing the controller from the centre pedestal, there was hot tea running out of it, at which point I said ‘’Gentlemen, do you have something to tell me?’’. The end result was the replacement of three control boxes due to contamination.

From my experience, fortunately it does not happen very often.

IIRC some years ago an Air Europe 737 had to divert after a beverage spill on the centre pedestal knocked out all radio comms.

The training centres where I worked all forbade drinks to be taken into the sims to prevent damage caused by spills.

Few years ago we had an engineer open the FO's cockpit window during a warm summer night.

He forgot about the window, clocked off his shift and a torrential rainstorm swung by the airport :oh::sad:

You should see how quickly the lights go out on a ATC control panel when tea is spilt in it !

Check out the 1964 film Fate Is the Hunter for Hollywood's take on the beverage spill problem! Also dig that rear engined jet conversion of a DC-6.

Our company requires that all beverages brought into the cockpit must be covered.

Nevertheless, we would still have spillage events which would short out the VHF comm head, transponder control head, radar control head, audio selector panel, center ACARS, or printer, all of which were on the center pedestal.

Once, we had a guy drop an unopened can of soda which broke open and discharged its contents all over the overhead panel like a runaway fire extinguisher. Luckily, we were still at the gate when that happened.

Fluid spillage, of any type, in the cockpit is not something that should be casually dismissed.

During IR training I was flying somewhere at around FL70 or something like that, in the middle of cloud, but nice and smooth and calm.
Was getting a bit thirsty so unscrewed the cap of my water bottle and went to take a swig.
Of course that's the point the cloud decided to get bumpy. Drop my water bottle on my lap and proceed to lose the entire 500ml contents of cold water right into my crotch. Wasn't impressed. Instructor found it hilarious.

After that you tend to be somewhat careful with drinks when flying.

as an apprentice in the late 80's working in the radio workshop for B-Cal, I had the lovely job of cleaning a yogurt out of the radio panel from a 1-11 that some clever captain had spilt everywhere.

I always find it depressing when someone feels it necessary to take a photo of their beverage and post it online together with a lame sentence of supposed solidarity with their fellow, equally self-important colleagues.


How are we meant to react?


His reply to the possible risk of damage speaks volumes.

Cockpit coffee spillage forces Mexico-bound flight to turn back and land in Ireland caused communication problems and a burning smell with smoke. Yikes!

AAIB report

I have noticed on many airlines, the flight attendant will always pass the drinks to the Capt and FO around the back of the seat. Never across the centre console. Makes sense and is very good SOP.

I know of one airline that has issued all their pilots with their own individual cups with sealable lids to prevent spills causing damage to avionics which had been costing them a lot of money. One individual dropped a full cup of Coffee between his seat and control column. The only thing damaged was his pride as he had to get down on his hand and needs and use a lot of paper towels to dry the floor.��

It's amazing what trouble liquids can cause on an aircraft. DHL disconnected the foot heaters on their B757's some years ago after snow melting off a pilots shoes caused a short circuit and associated smoke.