Narrative:

On descent we experienced an uncommanded left flap deployment that forced us to land flaps up. This caused us to disconnect the auto pilot (ap) and I gave the controls to my copilot. After performing the QRH and [alerting] the flight attendant; I took back the controls. By this time the ap seemed to be functioning properly so I left it on. The left flap was not coming down as it had done several times on descent. We informed center that we couldn't exceed 200 knots on the descent. When we talked to approach; they were aware of this and we asked them to pass along to the tower that we would need a long landing.approach asked us what speeds we could maintain on approach and I mistakenly told her that we could maintain normal speeds on approach. I was thinking about the 200 knot flap extension but I forgot that we would be flying final approach at 165 knots. We got on with the final approach controller and he informed us that we would be following a 757 and gave us the wake turbulence caution. I wasn't too happy about this because we had informed them previously that we had a flight control issue and needed a longer landing. My first officer (first officer) noticed that the 757 reported on the radio that they were empty and their final approach speed would be 115. I now knew this was going to be a real problem. A few moments later; approach told us to turn base. My first officer accepted the clearance but I immediately came back on the radio myself and told him we needed to continue on downwind for more adequate spacing with the 757 ahead. He then talked to someone else and then about 10 seconds later he gave us another turn for our base leg which we complied with. The next heading he gave was to intercept final and he stated something to the effect that we should've turned when he first told us to. My first officer took the approach clearance after that and we proceeded inbound. My first officer then proceeded to perform the unpressurized landing QRH procedure because of an inoperative APU. We switched to tower and they cleared us to land. Tower then stated our overtake on the 757 was 30-40 knots. The 757 got off just in time for us to land. Had we turned when approach cleared us to; we would have most likely had to go around.it was a long day of maintenance issues from the start. The APU failed to start and so we wrote that up and had to do a huffer start and unpressurized takeoff. Then the flight control issue compounded the situation while we tried to maintain control of the aircraft and work the problem and work with ATC to help us out. After completing the flight control QRH; we then had to focus on briefing the approach; completing the unpressurized landing procedure and now we had to worry about a very light and slow 757 ahead of us. I knew a go around would affect the safety of our flight to a significant degree because of all that was going on. I was trying to prevent that from happening by making sure we had enough space in front of us. It seemed to me that the timing of the initial turn to base from approach was just like any other normal turn they would give to a regular flight. In my opinion at that time; I felt the spacing would be way too close and would most definitely result in a go around. My failure to state earlier that our approach speeds would be faster than normal would have most likely prevented this.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: CRJ-200 flight crew reported they had to fly the approach at a higher speed than normal because of a flap issue; and that caused problems with spacing.

Narrative: On descent we experienced an uncommanded left flap deployment that forced us to land flaps up. This caused us to disconnect the Auto Pilot (AP) and I gave the controls to my copilot. After performing the QRH and [alerting] the flight attendant; I took back the controls. By this time the AP seemed to be functioning properly so I left it on. The left flap was not coming down as it had done several times on descent. We informed Center that we couldn't exceed 200 knots on the descent. When we talked to Approach; they were aware of this and we asked them to pass along to the Tower that we would need a long landing.Approach asked us what speeds we could maintain on approach and I mistakenly told her that we could maintain normal speeds on approach. I was thinking about the 200 knot flap extension but I forgot that we would be flying final approach at 165 knots. We got on with the final approach controller and he informed us that we would be following a 757 and gave us the wake turbulence caution. I wasn't too happy about this because we had informed them previously that we had a flight control issue and needed a longer landing. My First Officer (FO) noticed that the 757 reported on the radio that they were empty and their final approach speed would be 115. I now knew this was going to be a real problem. A few moments later; Approach told us to turn base. My FO accepted the clearance but I immediately came back on the radio myself and told him we needed to continue on downwind for more adequate spacing with the 757 ahead. He then talked to someone else and then about 10 seconds later he gave us another turn for our base leg which we complied with. The next heading he gave was to intercept final and he stated something to the effect that we should've turned when he first told us to. My FO took the approach clearance after that and we proceeded inbound. My FO then proceeded to perform the unpressurized landing QRH procedure because of an inoperative APU. We switched to Tower and they cleared us to land. Tower then stated our overtake on the 757 was 30-40 knots. The 757 got off just in time for us to land. Had we turned when approach cleared us to; we would have most likely had to go around.It was a long day of maintenance issues from the start. The APU failed to start and so we wrote that up and had to do a huffer start and unpressurized Takeoff. Then the flight control issue compounded the situation while we tried to maintain control of the aircraft and work the problem and work with ATC to help us out. After completing the flight control QRH; we then had to focus on briefing the approach; completing the unpressurized landing procedure and now we had to worry about a very light and slow 757 ahead of us. I knew a go around would affect the safety of our flight to a significant degree because of all that was going on. I was trying to prevent that from happening by making sure we had enough space in front of us. It seemed to me that the timing of the initial turn to base from approach was just like any other normal turn they would give to a regular flight. In my opinion at that time; I felt the spacing would be way too close and would most definitely result in a go around. My failure to state earlier that our approach speeds would be faster than normal would have most likely prevented this.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site 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.