This happened back in November, just hadn’t had a chance to share.
11/22/2022 - JZA8231 - YYZ / YSB (CR9)
Upon descent I lost all instruments (not planned, just a sim glitch). I still had flight and thrust controls but all instrument read-outs were frozen in place and all electronics were non responsive.
Luckily, the compass still worked!
I declared an emergency with Toronto Center who were online. They asked if I wanted to go back to YYZ or continue into YSB.
Given the lower population density of YSB, and the more remote location of the airport, I figured collateral damage would be minimized so continued.
As I was already on the descent when things locked up I knew I was more or less on the correct heading to get a visual of the field (luckily weather was in my favor) and continued bringing the plane down “by feel” (muscle memory maybe?).
As we got below the clouds, I was able to use landmarks like the Super Stack to get a feel of how far out I was and best guessed at how fast the ground was coming up below as to how high and fast we were.
Once I had the field in site I was able to circle around and enter the pattern to try and stable out. From there we lined up.
(Can see the instruments frozen at FL200)
The PAPI’s confirmed our approach but erroring on the side of caution (and a lack of indication) I kept the speed up a bit. We hit pretty hard but the plane stayed in tack!
We got everyone offloaded and then over to maintenance!
JZA8234 was late departing but no further issues headed back to YYZ!
I only have ~100 flight hours logged in the CRJ with the Virtual Airline but going through this unplanned exercise did help confirm (for myself) that I somewhat know what I am doing in this plane.
Failures (using the failures option or simulating one) has never been my thing, but sim glitches that trigger one, I don’t mind 