Sir, your plane was leaking fuel.....don't worry!

mrivc211

mrivc211

Well-Known Member
Sir, your plane was leaking fuel.....don\'t worry!

So it's the first flight of the day, 5am to be exact at an outstation that has no maintenance facility. The nearest mechanic is 1.5 hours away by car. Your the FO and as usual you must do all the leg work involved. You walk out to the airplane first and are meeted by a ramper that frantically tells you the airplane was leaking fuel from its fuel valve on the left wing. He says," don't worry I called maintenance control and he walked me thru how to fix it. The leak has stopped and you "should" be ok. The captain then walks out and gets in on the loop. He then proceeds to call maintenance control and advise them of what has happend and since they already know, he inspects the fuel valve which is incased in a panel which has 3 of 20 screws missing. he tells maintenance control he is confident to continue since the leak has stopped and will get it looked at once he arrives in a maintenance hub. After he gets off the phone, explaining that he will just "call maintenance in KXXX airport" he turns to you and says, you comfortable with it?

After you saying "Not Really!" he obviously becomes a little short tempered. He then advises you that the nearest maint base is 1.5 hours away in which a mechanic will come down and say the same thing that he has determined. Now you are pressured into your decision to agree to go. After once again mentioning that you are "not too hot on the idea of the ramper touching the aircraft", the captain replies by saying" I probably would have done the same thing".

Once again, as before you are new to the company and have not passed your one year review. Additionally you have 3 more trips this month with this captain.

What would you do?
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Re: Sir, your plane was leaking fuel.....don\'t worry!

This story kinda makes the guy sound like a dick.

But I will say that many guys I fly with will come to a decision with maintenance, dispatch, or whoever then discuss it over with me afterwards. Not that they don't want to include me in the loop. It's just that this decision making is their job as captain, and they get the information and come up with a way to rectify a situation. Then they discuss that decision with me to see if I concur, or if they missed anything. That's when I speak up if there is something wrong.

It does not bother me in the least that they ask after discussions are done with maintenance or whoever. They are still including me in the loop... now if they asked and I said I was uncomfortable, and they basically said "screw off", THEN I'd be upset. Or if they didn't ask at all.
 
Re: Sir, your plane was leaking fuel.....don\'t wor

Omar, based on what you stated, I think the FO needs to chill a bit. Simply based on what you said, I would feel ok with flying the airplane to the next destination, as long as safety and legalities weren't compromised. (I'll say it again) Based on what you stated, it doesn't sound like they were, considering the captain checked with maint. Now remember, I'm simply basing this assesment off of what has been stated, nothing more.
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You are not the captain and he made some decisions without consulting you, no big deal. He did, in fact, ask you if you were ok with it. If you were to protest and truely believed in your disagreement, the flight would not have gone. Simple as that. I think it would help you to put yourself in the captain's shoes and re-evaluate the situation. Command decisions are often not "easy" and take consideration in many aspects and much use of common sense. Just what I think Omar.
 
Re: Sir, your plane was leaking fuel.....don\'t wor

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Who said I was the FO?????
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[/ QUOTE ]

If you weren't then why are you telling the story?
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I had a lot of experiences like this. I had several n00b FOs that didn't realize how "broken" our aircraft are most of the time.

Story for 1900 drivers - we had an annunciator power source light that flickered occasionally. I didn't want to do anything until it came on and stayed on, and if you are a 1900 driver you know why - it is one of the ugliest MELs on the list. Not only is the extra checklist incredibly long, but you have to stay below 10,000 feet JUST IN CASE one of the annunciators that doesn't work is the Cabin ALT light (really.)

I had a n00b FO who absolutely WOULD NOT fly unless I wrote up the annunciator and followed every little detail. The tops that day were around 11 or 12,000 so we bounced around between PBI and TLH for 3 more legs.

I wanted to scream.
 
Re: Sir, your plane was leaking fuel.....don\'t wor

I'd fly the plane, I'd just want to go over those fuel diversion procedures one more time before departure just in case it started leaking again.....
 
Re: Sir, your plane was leaking fuel.....don\'t wor

I'm would play by the book. I'm a new guy, probably still under probation and wouldn't risk that fabulous pilot salary over nuthin
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Re: Sir, your plane was leaking fuel.....don\'t wor

[ QUOTE ]
Who said I was the FO?????

[/ QUOTE ]


Okay Omar, so what DID this FO do?
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Re: Sir, your plane was leaking fuel.....don\'t wor

I just recently talked to him and he was given vacation time for the last trip of the month, (he actually did have a wedding to attend to in SFO) got lucky I guess. The bad thing is some Captains bid lines privately and you can't see what their bidding to stay clear of their paths!!! Yikes!!!

And the captain..........he was awarded CRJ in DEN!
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Re: Sir, your plane was leaking fuel.....don\'t worry!

If I'm reading this right the ramp guy opened a panel with a screwdriver and did something to a valve. As opposed to opening a servicing panel and positioning a valve.

If that is true then everyone involved is probably in some legal jeapardy. "Turning a wrench" or a screwdriver falls into the realm of maintenance and the FAA would not look kindly on it, at least based on incidents I'm familiar with.

I'd say this is strictly a case of pushing an airplane up the road to avoid a delay. Especially if no enty was made in the logbook, then the intention was to do something unapproved and then "discover" it in a maintenance base and fix it.

This is not unusual practice. But is does place everybody who participates in jeapardy of FAA action, not to mention the safety concerns.
 
Re: Sir, your plane was leaking fuel.....don\'t worry!

I would have to agree with flyover on this one. Under FAR part 43 what the ramper did was considered "maintenance" of which only a certificated powerplant technician or certificated repairman could do and return the aircraft to service unless the person is supervised (meaning the mechanic or repairman is available [in person] to the extent neccessary to complete the repair).
I myself though am an A & P student though so I have never actually worked in the real world in aviation. From class discussions of "real world" senarios(of which a similar situation was brought up) I would have to say that aircraft was unairworthy and flying an unairworthy aircraft (especially in a Part 121operation) is a serious offense. I guess my decision would be based on how well my company's safety department would back me up... I learned quickly in my last career what breaking federal rules can do and I for one am not much for breaking the big ones. I am not green enough to think that all rules are followed no matter what (except in an interview, I will admit some must be broken) but I don't think I would break this one.
 
Re: Sir, your plane was leaking fuel.....don\'t worry!

Hmmm. Good one Omar. I wouldn't fret about the three mssing screws, but I would be warry of how the ramper fixed the valve. He's not an A&P, and I'm sure the fix involves using a maintenace manual. Unless there was an A&P there to visually supervise, inspect, and sign of the repair, I'd have to give the captain a thumbs down, until some validity as to it being allowed by the FARs.
 
Re: Sir, your plane was leaking fuel.....don\'t worry!

If it involves a tool, it's got to involve a mechanic.

Chances are, if you chat with your base chief pilot, he's not going to press you to jeapordize your career and the companies operations certificate.
 
Re: Sir, your plane was leaking fuel.....don\'t worry!

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Exactly! All that money you spent to get you to this point can go down the drain in a minute second. You could tell the captain sure lets go, but as soon as your airborne the valve could fail again. Yeah you might have planned for a fuel emergency, and can divert to an emergency landing field, but if something "unforseen" should happen the NTSB and the FAA will come a calling. Luckily I find that my maintenance background helps me out when a maintence issue arises and a go/no go decision needs to be made.

This is maintenace controls' foul up. Even if it's a 1.5 hour drive, there was probably sufficient time make the drive and fix the discrepency. The flight might have been delayed, but the repair would have been done properly by an A&P. Who's to say thay there might not have been something else wrong with the valve, or it might have been FUBAR, but only a mech would know upon inspection of the discrepency.
 
Re: Sir, your plane was leaking fuel.....don\'t worry!

You need to consider being smart and being legal. Having a ramper work on a maintenance problem isn't very smart. It could lead to bigger problems later. Having someone who is not an A&P do maintenance work is not legal-the PIC takes the hit for this (also maint. control) if the feds ever find out.
 
Re: Sir, your plane was leaking fuel.....don\'t worry!

We had one guy that worked as a ramper with me at XJT that was also a licensed A&P. To take it one step further, he even works part time for the contract mx company XJT uses in MEM. However, he was smart, and he wouldn't fix or sign off on a repair that was asked to be made while he was working as a ramper. His reasoning was that he wasn't acting in the capacity as an A&P at the time, and he thought it would look bad if something went wrong and the FAA got involved. Possibly too cautious, but I agreed with him. Although the time he WAS acting as A&P and was called out to fix a valve on a CRJ engine (Mesa contract), we really got on him since it took him about two hours to find a part. He wound up "borrowing" it from Mesaba.
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Re: Sir, your plane was leaking fuel.....don\'t worry!

I so hope that we don't get into "acting in the capacity of an A&P" and "perfoming duties of an A&P" discussion...
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J/K Kellwolf.... The original posting of this topic left out what the ramper actually did and that's what makes this topic wide open to opinions...IF the leaking fuel was from something like a fuel jettison valve that could be fully closed with an external lever, then no big deal--even the FO could do it
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J/K again! but if it required the deactivation of the same valve in my example by manually closing it, disconnecting cannon plug (connector), de-activating the circuit, logbook entries...etc, then the ramper probably shouldn't have done it. These topics are good for discussion, since we usually don't have all the details and the scenario is played out much differently in person rather than reading it on a puter screen. Only 3 screw missing out of panel with 20--it'll fly.....
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Re: Sir, your plane was leaking fuel.....don\'t worry!

Okay Omar, what's the real story! Maybe give some more details if your not ready.
 
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