cockpit fan noise and stressed out pilot
 

Today's UA 883 ORD-NRT had to return to the gate after a long taxi to its runwau position because of an undetermined humming noise coming from the cockpit instrumentation.

A fan was quickly found as the guilty element, and the repair was performed in no time. Testing however set us back for more than an hour making us leave with a more than 2 hours delay.

rest edited out due to majority vote on channel 9 handling

I'd be careful in what you say since that might be viewed by some as yet another reason for turning off Channel 9.;)

No longer relevant

Agreed. The only outcome I can see from this thread is another pilot deciding it might be easier to leave Channel 9 off... too bad.

I agree, the pilot on my flight last week IAD-BOS on a Mesa CRJ turned it off for just that reason... oh, wait. NM.

For the safety of channel 9, Ted asks that you not relay bad things we hear like this. RAR! :D

I'm sorry you didn't mention your seat assignment, but were you in the jump seat? If not, since you could not hear or see what else was happening in the cockpit, I think your assumption about the stress levels of the crew are a bit naive. There are many other reasons for missing/misunderstanding calls. Be careful about 2nd guessing the cockpit from the back seat....

I agree with nzpilot. For pax to make assumptions of ANYTHING going on up front is wrong. Esp based on what's heard on Ch9.

I don't know why lucky said it with a ;), but I am saying it with a straight, serious face; don't give pilots any more reason to turn it off.

Any chance this thread can be erased from FT forever?

Now why should this thread be censored/deleted?

The OP commented on what he thought/felt/etc... regardless if you feel he was wrong, or incorrect with his observations, which some have already commented on.

There is no reason to censor his comments because you think it will have an effect on your channel 9 listening enjoyment.

Without being in the jumpseat position the OP doesn't know the whole story. The mix up could of easily been due to troubleshooting of the noise, and communicating with Dispatch and/or MX to try to resolve the issue. In most instances only the primary radio is fed into the IFE panel so the back of the aircraft is not getting the whole story.

Suggesting this thread be deleted is not going to change anything. Pilots already know how they will treat the ATC feed and in what conditions it gets turned off mid-flight. It is a good thread for the readers to understand they shouldn't jump to conclusions based on what is heard while flying.

That's not what enervated means.

So the copilot missed a few radio calls - hopefully you know it's the flying copilot who talks to ground control. I'm at a loss to understand how that translates into the "pilot" (there are three of them on an ORD-NRT flight) being unnerved by a problem with an electrical cooling fan. There are lots of reasons for missed or misunderstood radio calls. Fortunately, I've never made any kind of mistake myself while flying, but I've heard that it happens. ;) Without knowing what else was going on in the cockpit while this was going on, I wouldn't even begin to judge the F/O or the crew.

So, in summary, ORD-NRT delayed 2 hours, cause determined to be a noisy fan in the instrument panel.

Channel 9 was available on the flight.

ORD controllers are professionals.

The flight was smooth and flawless.

Good post.

Yes they were of course.

But hey .. we were heading for a 14 hour flight, so timing was indeed crucial.