A captain reported accepting an aircraft that had been written up on the inbound flight for three du...

Narrative:

This aircraft lost both fmcs 3 times. This was written up inbound. When the aircraft arrived in ZZZZ (asia) the bad FMC was just signed off as a reset; ops check good. We picked up this aircraft and approaching the west coast of america; lost both fmcs. I was woken up from break and I found one first officer hand flying the aircraft and the other first officer with the book out trying to solve the problem. I was informed that the book did not address the problem (as was also written up previously) without the book; I selected the FMC master to the right position and got a blue line. I activated the route. Then the first officer cleaned up the route and performance numbers. We selected the left captain's selector to FMC right. The first officer notified the center that we had lost all navigation; but it was now operable on one FMC. We had not drifted off course; so there were no further problems. Called dispatch and notified him. He entered the write up and I asked him to make sure this is repaired. This could have been a tragedy if it happened on approach in minimum weather; or it could have caused a navigation deviation across the ocean. The write ups have to be fixed in ZZZZ and tell them to stop just signing things off. They appear to be very intimidated to not cause any delay or cost to the company.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: A Captain reported accepting an aircraft that had been written up on the inbound flight for three dual FMC failures. The discrepancies are signed off by Maintenance as reset FMCs. The problem appears again over the North Pacific on the return flight.

Narrative: This aircraft lost both FMCs 3 times. This was written up inbound. When the aircraft arrived in ZZZZ (Asia) the bad FMC was just signed off as a reset; ops check good. We picked up this aircraft and approaching the West Coast of America; lost both FMCs. I was woken up from break and I found one First Officer hand flying the aircraft and the other First Officer with the book out trying to solve the problem. I was informed that the book did not address the problem (as was also written up previously) without the book; I selected the FMC master to the right position and got a blue line. I activated the route. Then the First Officer cleaned up the route and performance numbers. We selected the left Captain's selector to FMC right. The First Officer notified the Center that we had lost all navigation; but it was now operable on one FMC. We had not drifted off course; so there were no further problems. Called Dispatch and notified him. He entered the write up and I asked him to make sure this is repaired. This could have been a tragedy if it happened on approach in minimum weather; or it could have caused a navigation deviation across the ocean. The write ups have to be fixed in ZZZZ and tell them to stop just signing things off. They appear to be very intimidated to not cause any delay or cost to the company.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of July 2013 and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.

Attributes
ACN	1038058
Time
Date	201209
Place
Locale Reference	ZZZ.ARTCC
State Reference	US
Environment
Flight Conditions	VMC
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	Boeing Company Undifferentiated or Other Model
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 121
Flight Phase	Cruise
Flight Plan	IFR
Component
Aircraft Component	FMS/FMC
Person 1
Function	Captain Pilot Flying
Qualification	Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Experience	Flight Crew Last 90 Days 250 Flight Crew Total 25000 Flight Crew Type 7000
Events
Anomaly	Aircraft Equipment Problem Critical

A captain reported accepting an aircraft that had been written up on the inbound flight for three dual FMC failures. The discrepancies are signed off by maintenance as reset fmcs. The problem appears again over the north pacific on the return flight.