MD-11
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP); Flight Crew Flight Engineer; Flight Crew Flight Instructor; Flight Crew Multiengine; Flight Crew Instrument
Flight Crew Last 90 Days 120; Flight Crew Total 13940; Flight Crew Type 1050
Distraction; Time Pressure; Training / Qualification; Troubleshooting; Communication Breakdown; Workload
Aircraft Equipment Problem Critical; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Maintenance; Inflight Event / Encounter Fuel Issue
Aircraft Automation Overrode Flight Crew; Flight Crew Took Evasive Action; Flight Crew Landed As Precaution; Flight Crew Inflight Shutdown; Flight Crew Diverted; General Maintenance Action
Company Policy; Manuals; Procedure; Aircraft
Multiple serious malfunctions occurred on this leg dispatched from a foreign airport.  Our crew took a 1 day delay leaving this foreign airport in order to have maintenance performed on the electrical system prior to departure; specifically focusing on an ADG that was deployed when the GEN 3 BUS failed with the inbound crew.  It was re-stowed and signed off by the mechanics who rode back on our same airplane.Although there were ongoing issues as well with the fuel system the first leg of the trip back with a planned intermediate stop was uneventful.  The airplane departed at MGTOW on the second leg and at approximately 14;000 FT the #1 engine flamed out due to a crossfeed valve that auto closed on that engine which already had a main pump MEL'ed.  [We] went through the procedure dealing with #1 engine RPM low and restarted the engine.  Rather than return to the departure airport; the Captain decided to continue on to destination since the airplane was now performing normally after selecting MANUAL on the fuel system and opening the crossfeed manually.At approximately 100 miles south landfall the First Officer's CDU's went un-powered with an alert displayed GEN 3 BUS fault.  This is the third time that I am aware of with this airplane that this fault has occurred in the last 2 weeks.  The checklist was performed for this fault and the instruments were recovered by once again deploying the Air Driven Generator (ADG).  Very shortly thereafter alerts began to display of fuel system faults.  We quickly determined that the fuel controller was back flowing fuel from the main wing tanks and filling into an inaccessible upper auxiliary tank.  The controller was essentially running us out of fuel with plenty of fuel on board.  The mechanics who were by that time in the cockpit were unable to stop the back flow of fuel.  Although the Captain decided that no emergency would be declared; we decided to immediately divert and were given a direct routing to the nearest major airport with no known traffic between us and the airport.  The situation left us questioning whether we had sufficient fuel or if we would be in a proper configuration to make it to and safely land at the airport.  We estimated that after landing there remained no more than 1 or 2 minutes worth of usable fuel available for the 1 & 3 engines.After briefly performing maintenance to remedy these issues; the mechanics signed off the airplane as airworthy and we departed for our initial destination with an uneventful landing at destination.There is a mindset in this company that the airplanes WILL move at any and all cost.  Many flight crews are intimidated to fly broken airplanes or lose their jobs.  Proper maintenance is rarely performed that actually fixes problems but instead just keeps the airplane flying for one more flight.  The shoddy maintenance program of this airline borders on criminal negligence but will not change until perhaps an airplane is lost.  It just about happened this time.
A MD-11 had multiple issues on a single flight. First an engine flamed out but re-stared after a fuel crossfeed valve auto closed. This first fault was corrected during a planned enroute stop. On the second leg; a GEN 3 BUS fault disabled the First Officer's instruments which were regained when the ADG deployed. Finally the flight diverted when a fuel crossfeed controller pumped main wing tank fuel to the upper auxiliary tank; making that fuel inaccessible.