B777 Undifferentiated or Other Model
Flight Crew Instrument; Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP); Flight Crew Multiengine
Flight Crew Total 7349; Flight Crew Type 390
Aircraft Equipment Problem Less Severe; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Flight Deck / Cabin / Aircraft Event Other / Unknown
Flight Crew Overcame Equipment Problem
Aircraft; Human Factors; Procedure
[In] the 777 Flight Manual; it describes the guarded Cabin Emergency Lights Switch which is located at the aft most flight attendant seat on the starboard side of the aircraft. According to the flight attendants I flew with; they said this plastic guard over the switch was removed between [time] to the present. Because of this; we had a passenger accidentally bump into the switch which caused all the emergency lights in both the cabin and cockpit illuminate. We turned off the emergency lights switch in the cockpit but that did not help because the Cabin Emergency Light Switch has priority. The only way to keep the lights off was for a flight attendant to physically keep pushing in on the button... and we had 7 hours to go in our night flight. Every time the flight attendant relaxed her pressure on the switch; the lights went back on. It was like a disco in the cockpit and cabin with the emergency lights going on and off. It was very distracting in the cockpit.We made a SAT call to [Maintenance Control] hoping we could pull a CB (Circuit Breaker) but he said there was nothing he could think of to turn the lights off. This has happened to one of our flight attendants before. She said last time they jammed a straw into the switch. So; one of the flight attendants grabbed a straw; folded it up; and jammed it into the switch so it remained in the in position; thus keeping the lights off.This seems like it could be an ongoing problem with no plastic guard over the switch and I can see it happening again. My question is why did we remove the guards that could have prevented this problem. My second question is why is this new design without the guard not listed in our Flight Manual?
B777 Captain reported the guard had been removed from the Emergency Light Switch and a passenger accidentally activated the emergency cabin lights with no means to deactivate them.