During climb at 13;000 feet; a B737 cabin altitude warning horn alerted with the cabin at 10;100 fee...

Narrative:

After a normal takeoff; 25 NM east of the airport; while climbing through 13;000 feet the cabin altitude warning horn went off and the cabin showed 10;100 feet with a pip rate surge from 300 FPM to 1;500 FPM. The flight attendants in the aft galley reported an excessive noise level from the doors. We immediately notified ATC and descended back to 10;000 feet. The autofail light was on; but went out back at 10;000 feet and the pip changes were normal; but the noise level only dropped by half in the aft galley according to the flight attendants. Therefore; in the name of safety and with most of the late night trip ahead of us; we decided to divert back into the departure airport for maintenance. The autofail light again came on during the final approach phase and since we were out of position for a non-routine landing on 6L; we went around and completed an ILS approach to 6L. The autofail light cycled on and off 2 more times. We made a routine safe; smooth overweight landing at 148.0 lbs. And wrote it up along with the auto fail pressurization. We checked the QRH cabin altitude horn exceedence; autofail light on intermittently; off schedule descent and the unpressurized landing procedure; as a precaution; because of the intermittent nature of the pressurization controller/system and warning light. Maintenance was able to resolve the issues on the ground and we departed later and completed a routine flight.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: During climb at 13;000 feet; a B737 Cabin Altitude Warning Horn alerted with the cabin at 10;100 feet; so the crew descend to 10;000 feet and with AUTOFAIL light cycling; declared an emergency and returned to the departure airport for an overweight landing.

Narrative: After a normal takeoff; 25 NM east of the airport; while climbing through 13;000 feet the cabin altitude warning horn went off and the cabin showed 10;100 feet with a pip rate surge from 300 FPM to 1;500 FPM. The flight attendants in the aft galley reported an excessive noise level from the doors. We immediately notified ATC and descended back to 10;000 feet. The AUTOFAIL light was on; but went out back at 10;000 feet and the pip changes were normal; but the noise level only dropped by half in the aft galley according to the flight attendants. Therefore; in the name of safety and with most of the late night trip ahead of us; we decided to divert back into the departure airport for maintenance. The AUTOFAIL light again came on during the final approach phase and since we were out of position for a non-routine landing on 6L; we went around and completed an ILS approach to 6L. The AUTOFAIL light cycled on and off 2 more times. We made a routine safe; smooth overweight landing at 148.0 lbs. and wrote it up along with the auto fail pressurization. We checked the QRH Cabin altitude horn exceedence; AUTOFAIL light on intermittently; Off Schedule Descent and the unpressurized landing procedure; as a precaution; because of the intermittent nature of the pressurization controller/system and warning light. Maintenance was able to resolve the issues on the ground and we departed later and completed a routine flight.

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	1070191
Time
Date	201302
Local Time Of Day	0001-0600
Place
Locale Reference	ZZZ.ARTCC
State Reference	US
Environment
Flight Conditions	VMC
Light	Daylight
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	B737 Undifferentiated or Other Model
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 121
Flight Phase	Climb
Flight Plan	IFR
Component
Aircraft Component	Pressurization Control System
Person 1
Function	Captain Pilot Flying
Qualification	Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Experience	Flight Crew Last 90 Days 240 Flight Crew Total 23000 Flight Crew Type 11000
Events
Anomaly	Aircraft Equipment Problem Critical

During climb at 13;000 feet; a B737 cabin altitude warning horn alerted with the cabin at 10;100 feet; so the crew descend to 10;000 feet and with autofail light cycling; declared an emergency and returned to the departure airport for an overweight landing.