Narrative:

On initial approach into a mountainous airport approach control changed arrival just passed over initial approach NAVAID and [I] selected the arrival from arrivals page. [Both FMC] screens go blank; afterwards complete route had been deleted. FMC does not even show up on menu page. Reverted to raw data to fly arrival; first officer is able to finally get the arrival back in after great difficulty. [The restored] course seems to conflict with raw data so we continue flying raw data. First officer does fantastic job backing me up. Flight lands without incident.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: Both of a B737-800's FMC blanked as the crew prepared for an arrival procedure into an airport in mountainous terrain. The Captain flew the approach using raw data while the First Officer restored the FMC's which recovered but were unreliable because of a map shift.

Narrative: On initial approach into a mountainous airport Approach Control changed arrival just passed over initial approach NAVAID and [I] selected the arrival from arrivals page. [Both FMC] screens go blank; afterwards complete route had been deleted. FMC does not even show up on menu page. Reverted to raw data to fly arrival; First Officer is able to finally get the arrival back in after great difficulty. [The restored] course seems to conflict with raw data so we continue flying raw data. First Officer does fantastic job backing me up. Flight lands without incident.

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.