Originally Posted by
megan
Interrupting a pre flight can, and has, been the undoing of flight safety, can point to the loss of a DC-4 and all on board when the aircraft was the main stay of airline operations, our own outfit had an engine cowling come loose in flight and cause damage that took six months to repair, exhaust gases impinging on the airframe changing metal temper was what took time to fix. On both occasions it was interruption to take a phone call that initiated events.
Of course, you have a good point and I did consider that. But think about it for a while on a modern jet or turboprop. How often do we find something that is reportable to maintenance on a walkaround. I mean something that will cause an incident for sure. Almost never. However, finding pitot covers on will cause an incident for sure(at least an RTO).
One has to weigh the chances of forgetting to complete the rest of the walkaround(which will almost never result in an incident) versus forgetting to mention the pitot covers(guaranteed to cause an incident). Standard weighing of potential outcomes of each option available, both of which can lead to the undoing of flight safety.
Therefore, I still suggest interrupting the walk-around to advise maintenance if one finds a significant issue. It can also prevent a delay by getting maintenance onto the problem earlier.