2022-08 · NASA ASRS report 1921992
EMB-170 Flight Crew reported a CABIN ALT HI EICAS Message illuminated passing 10;000 ft. The Flight Crew descended immediately and ran the QRH and checklists. It was discovered that the Cabin Pressurization Selector Knob was not in AUTO. The knob was placed in AUTO and the flight returned to departure airport.
Day started with one aircraft that had a maintenance item being worked on by Maintenance. The First Officer (FO) and myself began to set the aircraft up for the flight and then waited for the maintenance crew to complete their service of the aircraft when we were notified of a tail swap. Proceeded as normal on the second aircraft and boarded as per usual. We departed as usual and got a clearance to a fix and up to 13;000 ft. After passing 10;000 ft.; we noticed the cabin pressure was not normal and before we knew it Cabin ALT HI EICAS message was up. We followed procedure and donned our masks; I (pilot monitoring (PM)) had called for the QRC as the FO was a little behind calling for it. I told him that he's pilot flying (PF) to descend to 10;000 ft. A moment of stress and confusion to be certain. I followed the checklist and notified ATC a return to ZZZ with a need for some time to set up as assured the FO that he is PF and I will run the checklists as PM. We finished the checklists and noticed the pressurization knob was on LFE (Landing Field Elevation) select and not AUTO. Let's return to this moment a little bit later. We continued configuring the aircraft and noticed normal pressurization on the return to ZZZ; the FO asked if I wanted to fly the aircraft and decided that would be a good decision. We configured the aircraft and set up and briefed the approach and notified ATC we are ready to head towards ZZZ...which resulted in a go around due to tight vectors from ATC to get us in causing us to become unstable. We came back around and landed safely. The moment we noticed the Pressurization Selector knob not in AUTO still dumbfounds both pilots as we are certain that we saw it facing up (auto) earlier but when we questioned each other about it we determined we were not certain if it was that aircraft or the one prior even though flows were done on both aircraft. Possible pilot error. Have a Crew Awareness EICAS message noting the pressurization knob is not in the normal position.
We received a plane from maintenance due to our originally scheduled aircraft having the NAV lights MELed. The captain and I both did new originating receiving checklists due to getting a new aircraft. Climbing through 9;500 ft.; I noticed the Cabin Altitude was higher than normal. I pointed this out and shortly after I pointed it out we got a 'Cabin Alt High' EICAS message. Upon getting this EICAS message we accomplished the immediate action items and then promptly ran the QRC and then QRH for cabin altitude high. We leveled off around 11;000 ft. and per the QRC started a descent to 10;000 ft. While running the QRH we noticed the pressurization knob was set to 'LFE' (which it would still be in automatic mode) instead of the normal 'auto' position. We switched it back right away and got the pressurization back to normal and returned to ZZZ. The passenger masks did not deploy. I transferred controls to the Captain to make the approach and landing where we got vectored in tight to the runway to which the Captain elected to do a go around. We reset up for the approach and landed normally. Having a crew awareness EICAS message to alert the pilots of a non-normal configuration of a system would have resolved this issue.
Source: NASA Aviation Safety Reporting System (public domain). Reports are voluntary submissions and are not verified by NASA.
Loading the flight search…
Pick an aircraft model — Boeing 737, Airbus A320, A380, Boeing 787 Dreamliner and more — enter your origin airport, and FlightFinder shows every route that plane flies from there with live fares.
We support Boeing 737/747/757/767/777/787, the full Airbus A220/A319/A320/A321/A330/A340/A350/A380 family, Embraer E170/E175/E190/E195, Bombardier CRJ and Dash 8, and the ATR 42/72 turboprops.
Search and schedules are free. Pro ($4.99/month, $39/year, or $99 one-time lifetime) unlocks the enriched flight card — on-time stats, CO₂ per passenger, amenities, live gate & weather — plus My Trips with push alerts.
Live schedules come from Amadeus, AeroDataBox and Travelpayouts. Observed routes (which aircraft actually flew a given city pair) are crowdsourced from adsb.lol ADS-B data under the Open Database License.