B737-700 captain inadvertently entered engine out mode of FMC resulting in the aircraft pitching up ...

Narrative:

This was our first leg of the day. On climbout we were cleared direct ZZZ VOR and climb and maintain 17;000 ft. At approximately 14;000 to 15;000 feet and at 288 KTS I selected VNAV and autothrottles. I noticed that the masi airspeed bug was at 205 KTS; the climb rate was increasing; and autothrottles were reducing thrust slowly. As my first officer and I were trying to figure out the situation the flight attendants called with a cabin issue; which helped distract my first officer. When I noticed we were climbing through 17;000 ft I tripped off the autopilot and autothrottles and began a level off and stopped the climb at 17;900 ft. We returned to 17;000 ft. We then found our problem--the FMC was in an engine out climb mode. I don't believe we exceeded 30 KTS ground speed when I did the throttle burst; but possible. I usually don't see ground speeds approaching 30 KTS. Since this was our first flight I don't know how the speed brake was stowed on the last landing. This was the first time I have seen this engine out situation and will certainly recognize it quickly in the future. Besides the routing check; I will also add this to my CDU preflight check

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: B737-700 Captain inadvertently entered engine out mode of FMC resulting in the aircraft pitching up and throttles retard as assigned altitude was exceeded.

Narrative: This was our first leg of the day. On climbout we were cleared direct ZZZ VOR and climb and maintain 17;000 FT. At approximately 14;000 to 15;000 feet and at 288 KTS I selected VNAV and autothrottles. I noticed that the MASI airspeed bug was at 205 KTS; the climb rate was increasing; and autothrottles were reducing thrust slowly. As my First Officer and I were trying to figure out the situation the Flight Attendants called with a cabin issue; which helped distract my First Officer. When I noticed we were climbing through 17;000 FT I tripped off the autopilot and autothrottles and began a level off and stopped the climb at 17;900 FT. We returned to 17;000 FT. We then found our problem--the FMC was in an ENG OUT climb mode. I don't believe we exceeded 30 KTS ground speed when I did the throttle burst; but possible. I usually don't see ground speeds approaching 30 KTS. Since this was our first flight I don't know how the speed brake was stowed on the last landing. This was the first time I have seen this ENG OUT situation and will certainly recognize it quickly in the future. Besides the routing check; I will also add this to my CDU preflight check

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of April 2012 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	835801
Time
Date	200905
Local Time Of Day	1201-1800
Place
Locale Reference	ZZZ.TRACON
State Reference	US
Environment
Flight Conditions	VMC
Light	Daylight
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	B737-700
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 121
Flight Phase	Climb
Flight Plan	IFR
Component
Aircraft Component	FMS/FMC
Person 1
Function	Captain
Experience	Flight Crew Last 90 Days 116 Flight Crew Type 15000
Events
Anomaly	Deviation - Altitude Overshoot Deviation - Procedural Clearance Deviation - Speed All Types Inflight Event / Encounter Other / Unknown

B737-700 captain inadvertently entered engine out mode of FMC resulting in the aircraft pitching up and throttles retard as assigned altitude was exceeded.