Pax point out hole in Air Berlin aircraft
 

Not sure if it's such a good thing when your pax are seeing things the crew don't - like a punctured airframe!

Passagiere entdeckten vor Air-Berlin-Flug Loch im Flugzeug | Tiroler Tageszeitung Online - Nachrichten von jetzt!

An ATR-72 of Mistral Air, flying (or rather, not flying) a wet lease for airberlin.

If my schoolboy German still functions, they had a another problem 'carrying 100 passengers from DUS to STR' ! On an ATR72 ?

If the reports are to be believed, the crew initially rubbished the passengers' concerns until two of them insisted on being offloaded because they were unwilling to fly on an aircraft that was visibly damaged:

https://scontent.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0...69&oe=59BC751A

Here's the original social media post (with available translations to English) that generated the news item:

https://www.facebook.com/robert.tinn...07385595238097

A female passenger boarding what was to become the Hawaii convertible 737 noticed the crack but decided to say nothing on the premise that they (the airline) know what they're doing. Wonder the reaction now if the pax had said something.

C-FONF was a F-28 that crash on take off due to snow and ice contaminated wings. A DC-9 Captain and a Dash 8 Captain were both dead heading, the latter stated that "professional courtesy" precluded an off duty pilot drawing the attention of flight crew to a safety concern.

We're a weird lot.

speed tape it and end of story

Couldn't disagree more. This shouldn't be about the hole and how to fix it, temporarily or permanently. Instead this should serve as an example for the entire industry how not to deal with pax concerns regarding safety.

As has been posted above it should be absolutely unacceptable to disregard any potentially important safety related input from anyone (grounds staff including cleaners, pax etc).

Everyone in the industry needs to learn that lesson. Now, I realize that I am probably (hopefully) preaching to the choir here but we can all do our part by sharing stories like this one with people who work with and around us.

Quite right in general but do remember there are some passengers who think there is a hole in the wing when the flaps and spoilers are deployed.

Well, when you can see the ground through it, there is a hole - the difference lies in whether it is supposed to be there. ;)

Megan...
I was sent forward by my captain to inform the crew of clear ice on the wing as I was the only one in uniform..the North African crew returned to the apron.
A few years later when a volcano went bang we had a crew DH from ANC...the captain informed the operating crew several times of the large amount of snow on the wings...was told to shut up so he opened the emergency exit and climbed onto the wing.
Was arrested and took our embassy a few days to get him released...deported from the US for endangering an aircraft. My next trip saw a snow storm errupt as another of their kites rotated...

A few false positives would be a small price to pay (see the above examples where keeping quiet turned out to be a very bad idea).

And no airline should be employing cabin crew who can't tell the difference between the flaps being extended and a punctured aerofoil.

A difficult subject, a good fe years ago I was on a charter from LGW to Faro on a no longer around airline 737-200. Sat by front of wing and no leading edge slats were deployed during taxy- we sat at the holding point for about ten minutes due to traffic and still no slats. Me my family and our friends aboard, do you say something or not . Most airlines I had flown with deploy slats after push back or during taxi. I decided that if we pulled onto the runway I would do something (not quite sure what) but this was pre locked FD doors. As it happened as it pulled forward out came the slats. Was it their procedure-had they made previous attempts to deploy and decided on one last go before return to stand or did they forget until last moment- who knows but it is not a dilemma I would want again.

What would the crew do If I went up to an FA and said there are no slats extended?

Reminds me of a mixed pax and freight flight on the north sea. A pilot from another operator flying as a passenger spoke to the crew about an obvious c of g issue. After being told to wind his neck in he offloaded himself. As he reached the heli deck edge he noticed that all the other passengers had also offloaded. Their view was that if the pilot who flew them inter-rig wasn't getting on then neither were they. The aircraft was reloaded and the flight then proceeded.

Boeing 737 taxiing out in the UK. Old lady in front row tells cabin crew she can see out through a gap round L1 door. Ignored by cabin crew. Aircraft launches and fails to pressurise. Air turnback. Aircraft took off with the airstair bracket not retracted preventing the door closing fully.

are attitudes like this part of the problem? Passenger reports a hole so they must be wrong?

I was on a Dash 8 flight once watching the ground crew fueling the plane when another ground support guy asked the guy fuelling something while he was disconnecting the nozzle. They exchanged a few words, the hose was stowed in the bowser and they left...with the fuel cap hanging off.


They had #2 running before I could get the stew to understand the problem.


:p

Reminds me of a Trident taking off from Heathrow and forgot to deploy the slats ! I remember because I was reading the accident report in a similar Trident taking off from the same runway sometime after ! My attention was very much focused on the slats and I would have raised hell if I had not seen them down !

Not quite like that actually. Read the report again.

A few years back in YOW, I noticed a fine sprinkling of precip on the wing and pressed the CC call button to ask if the precip was liquid or frozen.

The captain called me forward and suggested that at 3C it had to be liquid. I stated that in my a/c I'd be putting a finger on it to make sure.

I abstained from discussing the physics of cold soaked wings and fuel tanks.
Some years before I observed frost over a tank on a 20+ day, but that type was approved for takeoff with frost in that limited area.

A rampie appeared shortly after and verified it was liquid.