overnight preflight

[lowbypass]

i am a first officer B737...we are out of base nite stopped, share same hotel with engineers, take different transfer to airport for a start of the day...engineers leave hotel 30min ahead of flt/cabin crew
on this particular day, with a grumpy captain we arrived 20 min ahead of engineers...we all know where they passed, they informed us
on reaching tarmac, aircraft is closed, dead, stairs placed both entry doors...capt decides to go for a cup of tea in sister aircraft on a transist flight "protesting" engineers absence
i proceed to our plane, open it...immediately cleaners went to action, cleaning, preparing cabin working together with cabin crew.
i made cockpit safety checks, preliminary flt deck preps, started the APU, walked around...and prepared for an on time departure...gave a boarding clearance AFTER briefing engineers what i had done of which they both gave a thumbs up, duplicate inspected and signed tech log
i proceeded to capt to inform him we are ready, he was aware of the activities...having tea
was it the right thing to do on my part?, in absence of engineers, must the captain decide who to open the doors to let cleaners in?, initiating a sequence for an on time departure?...refuelling was carried out the previous night

[lee van chief]

Yes you did the right thing. Too often at our place the engineer arrives at an aircraft to find the crew standing on the airbridge waiting for the door to be opened. The crew will no doubt be moaning about the long (10 min) wait.
What they often fail to realise is, that the eng has probably got several a/c on the ground, belonging to several different airlines.
Each airline will have it's own procedures for opening up the a/c in the morning, and the eng can only be in one place at a time.
It's nice to see crew using a bit of initative and common sense and getting things moving themselves.
:ok:

[lowbypass]

alrighty...

[Fargoo]

Depends where you are and why you have engineers doing pre-flights.
If the engineers were happy for you to do so then fine, so long as they repeat the entire pre-flight they're supposed to do so nothing gets missed. After all it is the eng that's signing to say it's been done.

[lowbypass]

thats exactly what happened

[ericferret]

I think we need to stop this outbreak of common sense before it gets out of control!!!!!!

[lowbypass]

Human Recources...

:E

[lowbypass]

before common sense gets out of control?

did you go for tea also?

[Mr @ Spotty M]

I do hope the aircraft was not in the UK.
If it was, you were lucky as you should have initiated a security check on the aircraft, unless it was security sealed and the seals were intact.
You are not allowed in the UK to leave aircraft unattended with steps in place, they should be removed after the aircraft is security sealed.
Well that is what l believed used to be the procedure, but might have changed by now?

[lowbypass]

not in UK
was security checked and sealed previous night
checked in the morning by cabin crew and ground staff
security seal checks and security checks is ground staff in collaboration with cabin purser which was done, this is not part of flight crew in our company
steps ARE removed previous night and put in place in the morning, i know that they are removed at night and positioned in the morning.

[pedro37]

In our outfit the crew does their own PDI and open up the aircraft.Engineering are available should there be a problem.This should be the norm not the exception.We are not there to babysit aircrew,our job is to ensure the aircraft is serviceable and departs on time safely.If you have an authorisation for the PDI why wouldn't you be expected to do a bit?
Your attitude is to be commended, more crews like you and less prima donna's would make everyone's life easier.:ugh:

[Fargoo]

This should be the norm not the exception.

Not so many years ago it was the norm for eng's to go round the fleet of a certain large uk airline and do early morning checks (ie power up the aircraft , Align the IRU/INS and check that no snags had developed on power up)
Unfortunately now this is rarer and rarer, cost over quality standards yet again.

[B257]

Not so many years ago it was the norm for eng's to go round the fleet of a certain large uk airline and do early morning checks (ie power up the aircraft , Align the IRU/INS and check that no snags had developed on power up)
Unfortunately now this is rarer and rarer, cost over quality standards yet again
Still hapens in most airlines i reckon.