B757 Undifferentiated or Other Model
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Situational Awareness
Aircraft Equipment Problem Less Severe; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural MEL / CDL; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Maintenance; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
Flight Crew Became Reoriented
Human Factors; Procedure
During takeoff the auto throttles would not engage. The PM set the proper thrust setting and the crew elected to continue the takeoff versus rejecting near the high speed regime. Once established at cruise and determining the proper power settings we looked at the MEL that was for an inoperative Left Autopilot and found that MX had pulled the incorrect circuit breakers; thus disabling the TMC servo instead of the autopilot. Therefore we departed with an improperly applied MEL. To complicate matters; while trying to determine our best course of action by contacting Maintenance Control; Dispatch was not responsive to a phone patch request and instead was trying to make the crew communicate by typing our issue and situation into ACARS. When we asked Dispatch for a frequency to contact them on they only responded with 'Contact them through Commercial Radio.' We did not receive ONE STOP SHOPPING from dispatch and felt that they were completely useless. If this had been a true emergency situation; where workload is really high; our training practice of having Dispatch there for the crew would have hindered decision making versus helped. We eventually contacted Maintenance Control and continued the flight to our planned destination.
B757 First Officer discovers during takeoff that auto thrust is inoperative during the takeoff. The takeoff is continued and in cruise it is discovered that maintenance pulled the wrong circuit breaker while attempting to comply with an MEL procedure for the left autopilot.