Incident: Air Canada B763 near Bermuda on Apr 16th 2009, problems with autopilotAn Air Canada Boeing 767-300, registration C-FCAF performing flight AC-90 (departing Apr 15th) from Toronto Pearson,ON (Canada) to Sao Paulo Guarulhos,SP (Brazil) with 129 people on board, was overhead the Atlantic near Bermuda (approximate position N30 W65) at FL330 about 2.5 hours into the flight, when the crew reported problems with the left (captain's) autopilot system and decided to return to Toronto. The airplane landed safely in Toronto about 5:20 hours after departure.
A replacement Boeing 767-300 registration C-FMWV resumed the flight with a delay of 9:45 hours.
Air Canada reported, that the trouble was caused by an indication problem.
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You can tell by his voice (the Captain) that he's totally spent.
I would like to hear the initial conversation he had with controllers while they were circling Bermuda but I'm afraid we don't have the feed.
I did, however, find this interesting pdf file:
North Atlantic Oceanic Clearance
http://occ.ivao.co.uk/booking/nat.pdf ###
CADORS Number: 2009O0650
Narrative: While on a IFR flight from Toronto (CYYZ) to Brazil (SBGR) the Pilot of Air Canada flight ACA090 a Boeing 767 declared an emergency due to
flight control problems, loss of auto pilot and engine disparity. Aircraft was 500 NM south of CYYZ and returned to Toronto, where it landed safely at 0835z.
CADORS search:
http://www.tc.gc.ca/Aviation/applications/cadors/English/Query/queryframe.asp ###
NOTE: That's a lot worse than what the press has said. I read it was a faulty autopilot indicator.