Narrative:

Almost immediately after lift off the 'rudder ratio' EICAS and warning light on the overhead panel illuminated. The co-pilot was flying and reported no adverse handling characteristics. I directed him to put on the autopilot and after completing the after take-off checklist I dug out the aircraft flight manual and ran the irregular procedure for this issue. The only item of note was that we were limited to a crosswind component of 15 KTS or less on landing; which was going to be a problem because the winds at out planned destination were at and forecast to remain out of the northeast with gusts to 30 KTS. I sent the maintenance message for the rudder ratio EICAS and then sent dispatch a call me message on ACARS and the dispatcher called me back on satcom. She set up a phone patch to maintenance and we discussed the issue with him. No circuit breakers were popped and maintenance advised that pulling and resetting this particular circuit breaker would involve exercise of my emergency authority. If we were in an emergency situation; my thinking was that returning to our departure airport would have been the appropriate action; however; there was no ETOPS restriction on the rudder ratio EICAS; so we decided we could continue and divert to a nearby airport with the fuel on board if the winds prohibited a landing at our destination. About 15 minutes later; operations I think; decided they wanted us at the divert airport anyway to fix the problem. So we were redispatched to a diversionary airport. I told the passengers of the divert shortly thereafter. The purser was advocating waiting until an hour before landing but I thought it was better to tell them right up front. No adverse reactions form the passengers were observed after the reason for the divert was explained to them. A revised clearance was requested through and ATC came back and asked us for an explanation of the reason for the divert a few minutes later. Passing over our original destination on the way to new destination; the ATIS was reporting winds at 070/24g36 so we would have diverted anyway. The only special handling we requested from ATC was for runway 4 due to the winds being rather strong out of the northeast. No handling difficulties were encountered enroute; on approach or on landing.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: A B767-300's RUDDER RATIO EICAS alerted immediately after takeoff so a diversionary airport was selected enroute because the destination airport crosswinds exceed the RUDDER RATIO failure limitation.

Narrative: Almost immediately after lift off the 'RUDDER RATIO' EICAS and warning light on the overhead panel illuminated. The Co-pilot was flying and reported no adverse handling characteristics. I directed him to put on the autopilot and after completing the after take-off checklist I dug out the Aircraft Flight Manual and ran the irregular procedure for this issue. The only item of note was that we were limited to a crosswind component of 15 KTS or less on landing; which was going to be a problem because the winds at out planned destination were at and forecast to remain out of the northeast with gusts to 30 KTS. I sent the maintenance message for the RUDDER RATIO EICAS and then sent Dispatch a CALL ME message on ACARS and the Dispatcher called me back on SATCOM. She set up a phone patch to Maintenance and we discussed the issue with him. No circuit breakers were popped and Maintenance advised that pulling and resetting this particular circuit breaker would involve exercise of my emergency authority. If we were in an emergency situation; my thinking was that returning to our departure airport would have been the appropriate action; however; there was no ETOPS restriction on the RUDDER RATIO EICAS; so we decided we could continue and divert to a nearby airport with the fuel on board if the winds prohibited a landing at our destination. About 15 minutes later; Operations I think; decided they wanted us at the divert airport anyway to fix the problem. So we were redispatched to a diversionary airport. I told the passengers of the divert shortly thereafter. The Purser was advocating waiting until an hour before landing but I thought it was better to tell them right up front. No adverse reactions form the passengers were observed after the reason for the divert was explained to them. A revised clearance was requested through and ATC came back and asked us for an explanation of the reason for the divert a few minutes later. Passing over our original destination on the way to new destination; the ATIS was reporting winds at 070/24G36 so we would have diverted anyway. The only special handling we requested from ATC was for Runway 4 due to the winds being rather strong out of the northeast. No handling difficulties were encountered enroute; on approach or on landing.

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.