Quote:
Originally Posted by Senior Skipper
Can somebody break it down for a non-CRJ pilot please?
She activated the start system to "motor" the engine, and it went to high power? I assume there's no button for this, and so the thrust lever must not have been at idle. Still, isn't there a separate switch to control the fuel supply to the engine? How did she inadvertently start the engine?
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The start button begins the process, when pressed it opens the appropriate valves to allow bleed air into the air turbine starter (basically spins the engine core). There is no fuel cutoff switch, there is a detent below flight idle on the thrust lever which is the fuel cutoff position. This is how the engine is shut down normally, the only other way to cut off fuel to the engine is with the engine fire button. So, if the thrust lever was positioned out of the fuel cutoff position, the fuel would be introduced as soon as the core started rotating. As far as the ignition goes, I pretty much only flew the CRJ200, and there was a button which armed the ignition, basically started firing the igniters as soon as the engine began spinning, and shutoff as soon as the start sequence was done. The 700/900 has auto-igntion, I kind of forgot how that works, maybe someone else can fill in the rest. I would imagine though, based on the results, that it started firing as soon as the start button was pressed, and with the thrust lever full foward, well, you can see what happened.