Beechjet 400
Aircraft Equipment Problem Critical
Flight Crew Landed As Precaution; Flight Crew Rejected Takeoff; Flight Crew Returned To Departure Airport; General Maintenance Action
Aircraft
First event: Aborted takeoff - while on takeoff roll; left engine Electronic Fuel Control (EFC) annunciator illuminated and the abort takeoff was called. EFC was reset as we cleared the runway and annunciator extinguished. We did a full power runup to try and duplicate the problem and were unable to. Dispatch/Maintenance then advised us to continue onto our destinations and to have Maintenance look at the problem later. Second event: air return. After positive rate call the left engine EFC failed again. The checklist stated to reset the EFC; so we did so after safe altitude; and it did reset. On the climb out the EFC failed a total of 6 times. We then decided as a crew after the 4th failure to return to our departure airport. Upon landing; as full reverse thrust was applied; the left engine EFC failed again. We only encountered the EFC fail at high power settings.
As we taxied we performed the taxi flow and followed with the taxi check list. The Electronic Fuel Control (EFC) test was performed and successful. Takeoff instructions were given by Tower and checklist for takeoff was performed. The First Officer advanced the throttles and requested me (pilot not flying) to set takeoff power. As I set power to 97.5% N1 the left engine EFC amber annunciator and master caution illuminated. Since my hand was on the throttles I pulled both throttles to idle and called for the abort. We cleared the runway. I took control of the aircraft and requested to return to the runup area and was granted that request. I reset the left EFC. When in the runup area I set power to 97.5% N1 and let it stabilize for 20 seconds. The EFC did not fail in this static runup. I then called Dispatch and requested to speak with Maintenance Control. I informed them as to what we had experienced thus far. The consensus was for us to continue the flights for the day [and] to end where a Hawker Beechcraft facility was located. I felt good with this decision and agreed to continue. We requested takeoff clearance from Tower and was given a heading of 055 degrees and to maintain 5;000 FT MSL. Takeoff was performed as it was with the first attempt; a rolling takeoff. No failure was experienced while on the roll. The failure came as I called 'positive rate'. The left engine EFC had failed. It was successfully reset. This happened an additional five times with power in the Maximum Continuous Thrust (MCT) setting. I decided to return feeling that this was a worse issue than Maintenance and I had thought and additionally that this had been a prior maintenance discrepancy. I advised Departure that we wanted to return. They asked for the reason to which I gave a short narrative as to the issue. They then asked if we needed to declare and emergency and if we needed assistance. I responded that we did not need to declare an emergency no did we need assistance. After flying for a few more minutes to ensure landing weight under maximum structural landing weight we were cleared to land. After landing and on the landing roll with thrust reversers deployed and developing full reverse thrust the left EFC failed again.
BE400 flight crew experiences multiple failures of the left engine EFC resulting in one low speed reject and a return to field. The left EFC had been written up previously.