Narrative:

During the pre-flight walk-around inspection I found evidence of damage to the right engine inlet inner cowl in the area of the N1 fan blades at the 4 o'clock position. It was obvious that the damaged area was previously repaired. The repair had failed and there was a deep hole with visible honeycomb material. The repair was not evident in the logbook nor in the maintenance section of our flight plan. The captain contacted maintenance control and advised them of the defect and that we had written the discrepancy up in the logbook. Maintenance control was not happy that we had done that and they advised us that the damage had been previously deferred and that we didn't need to write it up. While the repair may have been previously written up and deferred; it had obviously failed and there was no documentation readily apparent to the crew regarding this issue. We had no way to see or validate the facts regarding the repair or the repair failure. I feel that there was a lack of proper documentation and coordination regarding this defect. The airworthiness of that defect was not defined in any way to the pilots. It appeared un-airworthy to us. We had no way to determine where the missing repair material had gone or if there was any internal engine damage. The N1 fan and inlet stator appeared undamaged. Maintenance control directed the local contract mechanic to sign off the logbook as 'ok for flight' and previously logged. We departed ten minutes late.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: B757 flight crew discovers apparent damage to the right engine cowl; which appears to be an old repair that has failed. The damage is written up but Maintenance indicates that it has been previously documented and signs it off.

Narrative: During the pre-flight walk-around inspection I found evidence of damage to the right engine inlet inner cowl in the area of the N1 fan blades at the 4 o'clock position. It was obvious that the damaged area was previously repaired. The repair had failed and there was a deep hole with visible honeycomb material. The repair was not evident in the logbook nor in the maintenance section of our flight plan. The Captain contacted Maintenance Control and advised them of the defect and that we had written the discrepancy up in the logbook. Maintenance Control was not happy that we had done that and they advised us that the damage had been previously deferred and that we didn't need to write it up. While the repair MAY have been previously written up and deferred; it had obviously failed and there was no documentation readily apparent to the crew regarding this issue. We had no way to see or validate the facts regarding the repair or the repair failure. I feel that there was a lack of proper documentation and coordination regarding this defect. The airworthiness of that defect was not defined in any way to the pilots. It appeared un-airworthy to us. We had no way to determine where the missing repair material had gone or if there was any internal engine damage. The N1 fan and inlet stator appeared undamaged. Maintenance Control directed the local contract mechanic to sign off the logbook as 'ok for flight' and previously logged. We departed ten minutes late.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site 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.