Departing out of Charleston, SC yesterday. It’s the Captain’s leg and we depart off of runway 3. 2 things about runway 3. First, it sucks. They REALLY need to resurface it. Second, the departure end is right next to the general aviation ramp. We ended up holding short of 3 for about 15 minutes while waiting for a release time to Charlotte. In that time period a flight of 2 F16s did a low approach on 33 and then held to the north of the field while the airport switched runways to landing 15 (the other way of 33) and runway 3 (where we were waiting). We eventually were cleared into position and hold while a aircraft (Falcon maybe?) landing on 15. There is a hump in runway 3 and all we could see of the Falcon as it crossed down field on 15 was the tail. I started singing the Jaws theme. Ok, it was one of those moments you sort of had to be there.

Anyhow, we get cleared for take off with the F16s back in the overhead for 15 and a C17 on a 10 mile final. I felt like I was back at Gateway out in PHX. Normal (although bumpy) take off and climb. CHS stops your climb at 2000 feet normally which is really annoying when the 700 wants to climb at 3000 feet a minute. Fortunately they gave us a “unrestricted” climb to 10,000. So after watching the Vipers pass 1000 feet overhead we turned north towards Charlotte (a 30 minute flight).

About half way there I check in with Jacksonville Center. They acknowledged us and then told us that somebody in Charleston had watched our departure and called the tower there reporting that “we had a rope hanging off the plane.” Hmmm. He didn’t have any better info then that and seeing the we hadn’t fallen out of the sky yet, the Captain made the call to continue on to Charlotte.

Once handed off to Approach I requested 18L which is the runway closest to the tower so they could look us over while we were landing. They were slightly annoyed at this but agreed to fit us in. Just as well they did as otherwise we would be declaring an emergency and messing up everything.

The approach was normal. Tower called about 200 feet off the ground to report that they didn’t see anything out of the usual. The touchdown was fine, the rollout progressed fine but then at about 120 knots the nose wheel steering died. Basically, on the ground the plane is steered slightly by the rudder peddles, but primarily (and at taxi speeds) by a tiller on the captains side. It is an electric linkage to the nose wheel and steers about 70 degrees either way. This is what broke.

We were able to clear the runway on a high speed but not able to make the turn back down the taxi way. A quick call to MX gave us 2 circuit breakers to pull. (CB1G2/CB2G2 if anybody is wondering). After a few seconds the system kicked back on and we made it to the gate.

A walk around showed no sign of a rope hanging off the plane. The right brake was smoking a little bit but that was par for having to use the brakes to get off the runway. MX came out and checked the airplane over and didn’t fine anything either.

Made for an interesting day.

Oh yeah, I’m done moving!