Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Physiological - Other; Time Pressure; Workload; Communication Breakdown
Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Maintenance; Flight Deck / Cabin / Aircraft Event Smoke / Fire / Fumes / Odor
Flight Crew Landed in Emergency Condition; Flight Crew Returned To Departure Airport; General Maintenance Action; General Declared Emergency
Aircraft; Procedure; Human Factors; Company Policy
I brought this aircraft in and parked. The aircraft and crew were scheduled to do a turn; but I had a meeting with management during the turn and at the last minute my First Officer was reassigned to another flight. Our Flight Attendant was the only original crewmember on this aircraft for the smoke filled event.It would appear that the APU ruptured an oil line and it sprayed all of its oil all over the aft equipment bay including the packs. This caused smoke in cabin. The APU had auto-shutdown for low oil pressure. The aircraft was evacuated through the main cabin door and into the terminal. There were no injuries. I went back to the gate to speak with the Agent. She advised me of the evacuation on the gate and that the Mechanic tells her is that the APU has to be fixed and not MEL'ed because of what happened. I told her I would go find out what was happening. The aircraft maintenance logbook had been signed off and there was nobody on the plane. Two of the ramp workers asked me when Maintenance would be back to fix the APU. I told them it was MEL'ed and we might be good to board. They too said that the other Maintenance guy said that the aircraft need to be fixed and not MEL'ed. I called Maintenance and asked if they could assure me that the packs are free of contaminates and that there would not be a repeat of the smoke in the cabin from earlier. They said; 'Sure thing; it is not a problem. It is good to go.' The First Officer and I talked about this and decided to run the engines at the gate up to 70% to see if the packs would blow smoke. We did and there was no smoke. We loaded up; taxied out to the runway with no indication of a problem. We lined up on the runway; I set thrust and called 80 KTS and see some smoke. I tell the First Officer and then call V1 rotate and now the smoke is very obvious and not abating. Gear up; FMS; and I am off COM for 5 seconds to ask if we have smoke in the cabin. I call the back and the Flight Attendant says the cabin is now filling with smoke. 'EICAS' SMOKE TOILET; as I am back on communication and tell the First Officer of the condition in the cabin and state that we will be returning to the departure airport and I am going to declare an emergency. I declared an emergency and set [20] flaps up at 1;000 FT and completed the after takeoff checks. I say your radios; QRH Smoke Cabin; as ATC tells us to level and they will vector us to runway. We turned toward the north to begin the downwind and I turned the packs off to stop the source of smoke. The smoke did not constitute the dawning of masks as it began to dissipate. I began to dawn the O2 mask and could see that our procedures to complete the entire QRH would require us to get extended vectors and spend more time in an aircraft that was now filled with smoke. Our short time in the air and the removal of PACK air stopped addition of any new smoke and then diminished the current smoke. [Emergency Checklist was completed item by item.] The packs OFF; the aircraft was seeking normalization. The cabin passengers were not in distress. We were now 1;500 FT nearing a turn to land. Accomplished (completed) as much of the remainder of this checklist as possible before calling for the Descent Checklist and the Before Landing Checklist. Dependent upon the severity of the situation; the crew should consider an overweight landing; tailwind landing; ditching or a forced off-airport landing. I told the First Officer that the QRH was complete except for three items and they were not as much of a concern at this time as the descent checks and getting on the ground. I briefed the Flight Attendant and told her that if the smoke was causing distress to the passengers that we would evacuate on the taxiway adjacent to the runway and that I would give the command to evacuate through the main cabin door. She said that all of the passengers were in good condition and that they will remain seated unless told to evacuate. There was no order to brace. We completed the descent checks; tuned the ILS and briefed a possible overweight landing because our takeoff weight was 47;400 LBS. Touchdown was uneventful at less than 100 FPM. A short stop on the runway; I made a PA to the passengers to remain seated; and we had an inspection by the fire department and we told that there was no sign of fire or smoke. Some passengers complained of smoke related issues on the taxi in so we got the medics to take a look. We parked the aircraft and shut down both engines and did not have an APU and they had not gotten us a GPU. I left the emergency lights on and exited the aircraft to speak with the fire department. The passengers exited the aircraft and nobody asked for any assistance from the paramedics. I wrote the aircraft up for an emergency landing with smoke in aircraft. It would appear that there was some undue pressure applied to the line mechanics to get this plane out. Against the suggestion of a very competent Mechanic to repair the APU and clean the packs; a different Mechanic with no background on the earlier smoke evacuation was brought in to perform the MEL on the APU. I spoke with both mechanics. One had an 'I told them not to do this' attitude and the other said he knew nothing of the smoke evacuation when he had MEL'ed the aircraft. The Company and the FAA need to be proactive on evaluating the managers that have been interfering with crewmembers and employees as they try to do their jobs. This now makes the second aircraft that has needed an ASAP report by me to bring attention to the fact that safety is being compromised by ignoring the expertise of employees that have to live or die by these decisions as these management individuals sit behind a desk in a warm office.
The Reporter stated that no crew or passenger requested EMT aid after arriving at the gate. The Flight Attendant who was exposed to the oil when the APU line originally burst wanted to continue the trip even after being asked if she wanted off.
We again started both engines at the gate; and pushed back. We taxied to runway with the packs using engine bleed air. During the Before Takeoff Checklist; I briefed the departure that I would be flying. I briefed that I would slowly increase the thrust to takeoff power. This way the engine bleed source would over stress a pack. While on the takeoff roll; my Captain called '80 KTS.' At this point I faintly smelled smoke and my Captain told me that he smelled smoke. The airspeed was increasing rapidly and I believed that the faint smell of smoke would dissipate as quickly as it had done before. As my Captain called 'V1; rotate;' the smell of smoke had increased. My Captain made a comment about it; and when I glanced over at him; I could see a thick cloud of smoke blowing out of his vent. At around 500 FT; we received an amber SMOKE TOILET EICAS message. My Captain declared an emergency; and ATC gave us altitude at our discretion. I leveled the airplane at 3;000 FT; and my Captain began the SMOKE/FUMES QRH checklist. He also called the Flight Attendant and confirmed with her that smoke was visible in the cabin. After completing the checklist; my Captain informed ATC to have the emergency vehicles follow us down the runway. He told them that we would be bringing the aircraft to a stop on the runway and that he wanted the firefighters to check the tail of the aircraft for any signs of a fire. We received vectors from ATC for a visual approach. I briefed the approach and we were able to land without incident. I brought the aircraft to a complete stop and my Captain assumed the controls. The firefighters circled the aircraft and informed us that there were no signs of a fire. We then got taxi instructions to return to the terminal. The Captain had me call the Flight Attendant to make sure that no passengers required medical assistance. She told me that they were all fine. My Captain decided to have an ambulance follow us to the gate just in case. We taxied to gate and we shut the aircraft down. All of the passengers deplaned through the main cabin door. The fire crew searched the aircraft for signs of a fire; but informed us that there was no fire on the aircraft. We swapped aircraft and completed the flight delayed; but otherwise without incident. I believe the event occurred because the Maintenance crew did not thoroughly clean the aft equipment bay of the aircraft after deferring the APU. My Captain performed the walk around after maintenance signed it off; so I feel very comfortable that there were no outside indications that the issue was not resolved. The only way that this could have been discovered on the ground would have been by taxiing away from the gate and performing a high RPM run up for at least a minute. We had the engines spooled up to 60% N1 at the gate and saw no signs of smoke. However; it seems as though the smoke was created only after the packs were on for a while and the engines were spooled up to takeoff power. When setting the takeoff thrust I advanced the thrust levers at a slower rate than normal; and that didn't seem to produce smoke either. The smoke started only after takeoff thrust had been set for significant amount of time.
A CRJ200's APU oil line ruptured allowing oil in aft fuselage including the packs; which caused the cabin to fill with smoke after takeoff. The crew declared an emergency and returned to the departure airport. The APU was MEL'ed; but the oil contamination not removed.