Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Aircraft Equipment Problem Less Severe; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
Flight Crew Became Reoriented
Human Factors; Aircraft
Base to final turn; hand flying; single chime and GEN 2 off caution message popped up on EICAS. I glanced over and saw it and said something out loud like; 'GEN 2 is off; I'm continuing; we're short final and landing.' A few moments later; I heard a clunk sound in front of me; followed by the sound of a tiny propeller spinning. Pilot monitoring mistakenly cycled IDG 1 when intending to cycle IDG 2.
During approach our workload was a little high because we had had some problems visually acquiring the field. On base to final we got a GEN2 OFF caution message. After the aircraft was configured and on final I attempted to reset the IDG but cycled the IDG1 switch rather than the IDG2 switch causing a momentary loss of electrical power and deployment of the Air Driven Generator. I instantly realized my mistake and turned the IDG1 switch back to on. We continued the approach and landed without further incident. High workload on final approach was an unfortunate time for GEN2 to kick off. In the heat of the moment and in a critical phase of flight I attempted to solve the problem but cycled the wrong IDG. In retrospect the correct course of action would have been to just land the aircraft as we were already on short final and work thru the problem on the ground. Alternatively we might have executed a go-around and ran the QRH.
CRJ200 flight crew reported a IDG 2 trip during approach. The Captain attempted to reset it; but used the IDG 1 switch causing the air driven generator to deploy.