Hot or Not?

On the handling of ambiguous emergencies

- SAM WEIGEL

It was a beautiful morning at the beginning of June, and as we leveled off at our cruise altitude of FL 340 and settled in for the four-hour flight, it had every appearance of being a nice, easy day flying the line. We had only two legs, from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport to Cancun, Mexico, and back. The weather was good on both ends and most points en route. The late-model Boeing B737-900ER had no write-ups or maintenance carryovers. Our crew of veteran flight attendants were pleasant and professional. I’d flown several prior trips with the first officer, Ryan, and we got along and worked well together. I sighed contentedly and slightly reclined my seat, gazing out over the Chesapeake Bay sliding under my side window.

Ding!

There are several chimes of various meanings in the B737 cockpit, and it took me a second to see the flight attendant call light and configure my audio panel accordingly, expecting a routine request to change the cabin temperature. Instead, a thunderbolt from out of the blue: “ Captain, this is Julie in the aft galley. We have a strong smell of burning electrical wires back here but no smoke. We’re still trying to figure out where it’s coming from.”