A pilot describes why he believes the current MEL practice of deferring both cargo door warning ligh...

Narrative:

April 2013; I called maintenance at my airline to report a cargo door light on the panel that would not go out. After talking to maintenance and checking that the bayonets were in place on the cargo door they issued me a MEL for the door under the assumption that because the bayonets were in place the light was not properly working. This was repaired after a few days when I pressured the mechanics to repair it or I would refuse to fly the aircraft on the next flight. [Approximately] twelve days later; I had the same problem and was given another MEL from a mechanic who claimed to have discussed it with the director of maintenance (dom). While legal; I felt this MEL should not be available as the design of the cargo door requires that it be properly secured or it could possibly take off the tail. Pressure was placed on me by the mechanics to fly an aircraft that I deemed unairworthy and unfortunately between the pressure and the overall fatigue of the cargo schedule I departed with a legal; yet stupid; cargo door MEL.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: A pilot describes why he believes the current MEL practice of deferring both Cargo Door Warning Lights on their Fairchild SA-227 aircraft is an unsafe practice. They fly single pilot operations.

Narrative: April 2013; I called Maintenance at my airline to report a Cargo Door light on the panel that would not go out. After talking to Maintenance and checking that the bayonets were in place on the cargo door they issued me a MEL for the door under the assumption that because the bayonets were in place the light was not properly working. This was repaired after a few days when I pressured the mechanics to repair it or I would refuse to fly the aircraft on the next flight. [Approximately] twelve days later; I had the same problem and was given another MEL from a Mechanic who claimed to have discussed it with the Director of Maintenance (DOM). While legal; I felt this MEL should not be available as the design of the cargo door requires that it be properly secured or it could possibly take off the tail. Pressure was placed on me by the mechanics to fly an aircraft that I deemed unairworthy and unfortunately between the pressure and the overall fatigue of the cargo schedule I departed with a legal; yet stupid; cargo door MEL.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of July 2013 and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.

Attributes
ACN	1086080
Time
Date	201304
Local Time Of Day	1201-1800
Place
Locale Reference	ZZZ.Airport
State Reference	US
Environment
Flight Conditions	VMC
Light	Daylight
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	SA-227 AC Metro III
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 135
Flight Phase	Parked
Flight Plan	IFR
Component
Aircraft Component	Cargo Door
Person 1
Function	Pilot Flying Single Pilot
Qualification	Flight Crew Multiengine Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP) Flight Crew Instrument
Experience	Flight Crew Last 90 Days 150 Flight Crew Total 3500
Events
Anomaly	Aircraft Equipment Problem Critical

A pilot describes why he believes the current MEL practice of deferring both cargo door warning lights on their fairchild sa-227 aircraft is an unsafe practice. They fly single pilot operations.