Narrative:

I had two flights within 2 days with the same problem. The drain tube for the left pack in the tailcone area are getting frayed and accumulating water and/or spraying water on the electronic components. The problem manifested itself on an earlier flight; the aircraft was pulled from service due to a fuel panel leak discovered by maintenance while they were fixing the drain tube issue. The water was actually creating a rain forest in the tail cone area. Everything on the left side of the aircraft's tail cone was saturated with water. It was spraying water similar to a mister all over everything! Note: an industrial vacuum was brought in remove the moisture. On a different flight; the following day; we had to call contract maintenance (30 minute response time); to fix the issue. When accessing the APU fire control panel; the door was filled with water and the panel was very moist. A lot of water on the ground was evident. This flight that was already delayed inbound and we incurred almost an hour waiting for the fix. I am not criticizing the contract maintenance; just the problem this small drain tube created. The discovery of this issue is relatively simple. Water on the ground near the left; aft area of the plane and when opening the access panel; you get wet. My concern is the mixture of water and electronic devices together. A false alarm could occur in-flight with a soaked APU fire control unit. The tailcone on a long flight could have problems with cables; electronics; and other components freezing in this area. We all know the fleet is getting older; however; I am concerned about this drain tube and the possible consequences.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: A MD-83 diverted because of electrical anomalies but continued after maintenance action only to discover later that a tail compartment airconditioning leak was spraying water on electrical components in that area which was not examined by Maintenance.

Narrative: I had two flights within 2 days with the same problem. The drain tube for the left pack in the tailcone area are getting frayed and accumulating water and/or spraying water on the electronic components. The problem manifested itself on an earlier flight; The aircraft was pulled from service due to a fuel panel leak discovered by Maintenance while they were fixing the drain tube issue. The water was actually creating a rain forest in the tail cone area. Everything on the left side of the aircraft's tail cone was saturated with water. It was spraying water similar to a mister all over everything! Note: An industrial vacuum was brought in remove the moisture. On a different flight; the following day; we had to call Contract Maintenance (30 minute response time); to fix the issue. When accessing the APU Fire Control Panel; the door was filled with water and the panel was very moist. A lot of water on the ground was evident. This flight that was already delayed inbound and we incurred almost an hour waiting for the fix. I am not criticizing the Contract Maintenance; just the problem this small drain tube created. The discovery of this issue is relatively simple. Water on the ground near the left; aft area of the plane and when opening the access panel; you get wet. My concern is the mixture of water and electronic devices together. A false alarm could occur in-flight with a soaked APU Fire Control unit. The tailcone on a long flight could have problems with cables; electronics; and other components freezing in this area. We all know the fleet is getting older; however; I am concerned about this drain tube and the possible consequences.

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.