Blew a capacitor on a King Air panel mid-flight last Tuesday

I was troubleshooting a flickering nav display on a 1998 King Air 200 when a capacitor literally popped and smoked right in front of the pilot. He just stared at me and said 'is that supposed to happen?' lol. Has anyone else had a component fail so dramatically mid-job like that?

2 comments

2 Comments

craig.reese5d ago

Respectfully, blowing a cap on a King Air panel isn't that rare or dramatic. Those old displays are full of 20+ year old electrolytics that are all past their shelf life. The pilot's reaction is funny, but honestly, that's just normal for old avionics work. You're basically working on a ticking time bomb every time you open one of those panels. A cap letting go with a pop and some smoke is maybe the most common failure mode I've seen. It's not like a fire or a total short, it's just the part finally giving up. The real question is why you didn't swap out the whole power supply board before it got to that point.

roseb472d ago

Is it just me or does this remind you of how people treat their phone chargers and laptop bricks until they start smoking? Same deal. Everyone runs those old power supplies until something literally pops, then acts shocked. It's like we all KNOW the thing is gonna fail but we keep pushing it until the smoke test happens. Cheap capacitors and lazy maintenance go hand in hand across every industry, not just aviation.