Narrative:

At FL340 enroute to our destination; our cautions lights were indicating multiple erroneous errors. All flight control lights; anti-ice lights; hydraulic lights; bleed air lights; the APU squib light; and the cockpit door lights were illuminated. Our jumpseater depressed the cockpit door light and noticed a flicker in the other lights. At this point; we noticed that the cockpit door light was very sticky. We shined a flashlight at the panel and noticed evidence of a spill on the center panel. (To be clear; we did not spill anything on our entire three-day trip. This stuff was from a prior crew.) based on this information; we had reason to believe the problem's origin to be the cockpit door lights shorting out and affecting the entire master caution system. At this point; we began to get hints of an electrical burning odor. I removed both cockpit door lights thinking that if there was short; this may interrupt the electrical flow. I also wanted to see how much residue was inside the light contacts. We continued to get occasional odors and the jumpseater said that it was very hot in the cockpit door light holes. As we did some troubleshooting; I shined my flashlight into the holes and saw thick smoke rising out of them. We immediately donned our goggles and masks; declared an emergency; and began an emergency descent. We were very concerned that a fire in flight could be imminent. ATC gave us vectors to an airport (about 110 miles away). Halfway through the descent; the smoke stopped and we made an uneventful landing. Firefighters met the plane and checked us over. We parked off of the one and only gate; which had an inbound terminator due in. The fire crew opened the doors for an uneventful shut down and deplaning of all the passengers. Thankfully this event ended safely. To be honest; it gave us quite a scare.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: A B737's caution lights were erroneously indicating multiple faults. The center pedestal door light switch apparently had something sticky poured into it causing a short and when the light was pulled from the socket smoke was seen. An emergency was declared and the aircraft diverted to an enroute airport.

Narrative: At FL340 enroute to our destination; our cautions lights were indicating multiple erroneous errors. All flight control lights; anti-ice lights; hydraulic lights; bleed air lights; the APU squib light; and the cockpit door lights were illuminated. Our Jumpseater depressed the cockpit door light and noticed a flicker in the other lights. At this point; we noticed that the cockpit door light was very sticky. We shined a flashlight at the panel and noticed evidence of a spill on the center panel. (To be clear; we did not spill anything on our entire three-day trip. This stuff was from a prior crew.) Based on this information; we had reason to believe the problem's origin to be the cockpit door lights shorting out and affecting the entire Master Caution System. At this point; we began to get hints of an electrical burning odor. I removed both cockpit door lights thinking that if there was short; this may interrupt the electrical flow. I also wanted to see how much residue was inside the light contacts. We continued to get occasional odors and the Jumpseater said that it was very hot in the cockpit door light holes. As we did some troubleshooting; I shined my flashlight into the holes and saw thick smoke rising out of them. We immediately donned our goggles and masks; declared an emergency; and began an emergency descent. We were very concerned that a fire in flight could be imminent. ATC gave us vectors to an airport (about 110 miles away). Halfway through the descent; the smoke stopped and we made an uneventful landing. Firefighters met the plane and checked us over. We parked off of the one and only gate; which had an inbound terminator due in. The fire crew opened the doors for an uneventful shut down and deplaning of all the passengers. Thankfully this event ended safely. To be honest; it gave us quite a scare.

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.