A new FAA Safety Alerts for Pilots provides guidance to flight crews on the proper identification and manipulation of circuit breakers during abnormal and emergency situations. This is being published in response to NTSB Recommendation A-09-120 from 2009 that asked the FAA to require operators to implement the airframe manufacturers’ guidance regarding which circuit breakers pilots need to identify quickly and pull during abnormal or emergency situations.   

The NTSB identified several fatal accidents in which the pilot was unable to identify and pull a circuit breaker (typically the autopilot) during an abnormal or emergency situation. One of those accidents resulted in the deaths of two pilots and four passengers onboard a Cessna Citation 550 on June 4, 2007. The FAA expects this SAFO to fully meet the intent of the nearly 10-year-old recommendation.

Abnormal or emergency procedures involving the use of circuit breakers “should be minimized and should not call for pulling circuit breakers/resetting or replacing circuit protective devices in flight, except as part of an approved fault clearing and isolation procedure,” In addition, the SAFO said that in “too many cases, a circuit breaker supplies power to more functions than the label implies. To be certain, flight crews should check the wiring diagrams, and not pull circuit breakers unless the POH/AFM directs that specific action.”