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.

Years ago I was flying Trislanders. Because a failure of the centre engine wasn't that obvious, there was a light on the panel marked "No. 2 Engine Fail". The system was switched on before takeoff, and subsequently the light began to flash. Bearing in mind that the first pax row is directly behind the pilot, and we frequently had a passenger in the RHS, it was common to get the dig in the back of the neck and.."Ere, pilot".

Yes, the Spanair MD-82 at MAD would be more apt parallel.

You never know
 

A long long time ago, when I was about 15yrs old, took a flight (without parents) from LHR to Jersey, in a viscount. In the cruise I noticed a crack across the top of the LHS inside engine mount, slowly getting longer. I ask the CC if it was normal - they didn't know, but told the flight deck. Man with stripes arrived, looked at it and with horror in his eyes said "that's normal young man, but we will stop the engine to be on the safe side". Safe 3 engine landing was the result.

Slats
 

#19. trident - slats???:{
Prober

Most Tridents had slats, though presumably the OP is referring to Papa India which, being a 1C, had droops instead.

Either way, PI certainly didn't take off with the crew having forgotten to deploy them.

Yes North African..it was actually Air Algerie who had taken eco tankage into GVA and onto ZRH. Our ground crew had checked but not checked and there was a layer of clear ice on the wings which my skipper spotted. Ex Luftwaffe strarfighter...incredibly talented the whole bunch.
The crew went all the way to the threshold of 23, lined up and put on loads of power which saw my skipper go white but they were just speeding up the process of getting back to the ramp. It took two full goes to clear the ice.
Our DC9s had tell tales added to aid clear ice detection as it is extremely difficult to see.
The ANC case was also ex Luftwaffe...but everyone could see an inch or so of dry snow on the wing...quite sure that the local FAA tolerated the practice.
WRT to dents..her indoors had five hours getting drunk in Nimes after a frog loader drove into FR cargo hold frame...engineer decided that he couldn't inspect the internals so they flew down another 737.
And we had a big airways "senior first officer" tell us all how he was a clever boy and had discovered a dent at LHR on a 74 with the paint peeling off...the insides weren't much better with threadbare carpets and the entertainment system not working...haven't been back since.

Over the years I have had many passengers tell me about things they find strange. The first thing I do is thank them for their comment. Then I have a look and then explain what I have found. If I can't see what they told me about, I get them outside to show me. To date, nobody has found anything we didnt know about beforehand but plenty of items on the MEL have been spotted by eagle eyed pax. I hope they never stop looking.

I'd like to think that I and my colleagues would have said something.

As an FO, I DID point out that we were high and fast on a short wet runway. (Used all of those terms)
Ol' skip carried on and landed anyway, bursting all the maingear tyres. Fortunately we didn't go off the end.

I was six years old on my first flight heading to visit the grandparents sitting window over port wing of a DC-6. Only thing kids could do then is look out the window and marvel at the ability to fly. Noticed oil streaming back out of the cowling of the port inner back over the wing during cruise. Tugged on mum's shirt, she flagged down the stew who took a quick look and then went forward. One of the front office came back, leaned over took a look and said in what was classic pilot vernacular 'that's normal for these old buckets but thank you and keep watching it for me' after which I received my first set of wings. I knew what I wanted to do for a living and my doodling in school was airliners from then on - no more trains.

Hear, hear! Once insisted on steps being brought so that I could climb up and check. Ground handling said 'All OK, captain.' I didn't trust them and insisted.
Another time we had been de-iced, noticed residual ice and had the job done again after photographing the evidence.
On yet another occasion, guy threw a bucket of hot water over a cold-soaked wing. Needless to say, it froze on contact. :*

Similar thing happened on a BA 707 out of Montreal once. One of the rear doors was very obviously not shut properly after galley loading. Cabin crew sat next to it and just let it all happen. Of course once airborne the screaming airflow noise finally prompted the clowns to tell someone on the flightdeck. After levelling off at 10000 the flight engineer (remember them?) actually opened the door against the airflow and shut it properly. No turnback required.

Piltdown Man has it right:
We now know FOR SURE, that a picture of the hole/defect/speedtape will be on social media before the chocs are pulled. CEOs should be making it very clear that, whilst it may be irritating to get five people pointing out the speedtape - it's cheaper than the social media meltdown afterwards, over something that was not an issue.

If the hole is in a pressurised area I'm wondering how speed tape would stay on

October 1999 flying Manchester to Gatwick (thence Phoenix, Oakland to join a ship in Oakland) noticed that most of the fasteners, Dzus(?) that secured a wing panel over the right hand engine of the BA737 were missing. When we landed I checked the left hand side and 100% present. Tried asking the cabin crew to pass on to the fight deck, but not interested.


Admittedly nothing was flapping or fell off during the 30 odd minutes MAN to LGW, but I'm sure the fasteners should have been there...

Multiple layers of speed tape from the inside with a good overlap from the hole, put some heavy bags on top of it and probably good 'til the next D Check. ;)

In this case, it clearly wasn't.

In the late 1980s I was positioning JER-GCI on a clockwork Tristar with another member of crew,we had the last row just below the engine on the fin.The pilot taxied to the hold on two engines,we naturally expected the third engine to start before TO but no we lined up and powered up and started to roll,we both shouted STOP!! The pilot vacated the runway taxied back to the hold and started the third engine and took off.

Vivabeaver. Probably meant to stop that light flashing, as in my post 22, but then forgot about the engine.

Forgive my skepticism, but that doesn't seem likely. Where was she when she noticed the crack?

Not likely, but a passenger did observe a crack while boarding. See second paragraph on page 11 :

https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/...ts/AAR8903.pdf