B767 captain reported they almost departed before all critical maintenance work was completed on a t...

Narrative:

We were waiting on the ramp for maintenance to deactivate and defer the left thrust reverser as per MEL. The [contract] mechanic said he was looking for the pin to install in the engine to deactivate the thrust reverser. I told him to call [maintenance]. After 95 minutes had passed; [the contract mechanic] told me the maintenance was complete. I instructed the agent to close the door as we would be getting the [release] on the printer. After the [release] printed; I read it and reached for the logbook to insert it. Couldn't find the logbook so I asked the gate agent to bring the jetway back and for [the contract mechanic] to come back and bring the logbook. [The contract mechanic] came back to the cockpit asking me for just 10 more minutes to 'find the pin' - the pin he told me was installed! At this point we were uncomfortable with the safety of the operation (because [the contract mechanic] just lied to us). I called [maintenance] and asked for another mechanic to perform the steps to complete the [release]. Another mechanic came onboard and said that he had just installed the pin and all the steps had been complied with. The horrifying thing is that if I had found the logbook; we would have taxied out and flown with the real possibility of a reverser activation in flight!

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: B767 Captain reported they almost departed before all critical maintenance work was completed on a thrust reverser because of incorrect information from a Contract Mechanic.

Narrative: We were waiting on the ramp for maintenance to deactivate and defer the left thrust reverser as per MEL. The [contract] mechanic said he was looking for the pin to install in the engine to deactivate the thrust reverser. I told him to call [Maintenance]. After 95 minutes had passed; [the contract mechanic] told me the maintenance was complete. I instructed the agent to close the door as we would be getting the [release] on the printer. After the [release] printed; I read it and reached for the logbook to insert it. Couldn't find the logbook so I asked the gate agent to bring the jetway back and for [the contract mechanic] to come back and bring the logbook. [The contract mechanic] came back to the cockpit asking me for just 10 more minutes to 'find the pin' - the pin he told me was installed! At this point we were uncomfortable with the safety of the operation (because [the contract mechanic] just lied to us). I called [Maintenance] and asked for another mechanic to perform the steps to complete the [release]. Another mechanic came onboard and said that he had just installed the pin and all the steps had been complied with. The horrifying thing is that if I had found the logbook; we would have taxied out and flown with the real possibility of a reverser activation in flight!

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.

Attributes
ACN	1373093
Time
Date	201607
Local Time Of Day	1801-2400
Place
Locale Reference	ZZZZ.Airport
State Reference	FO
Environment
Light	Night
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	B767 Undifferentiated or Other Model
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 121
Flight Phase	Parked
Flight Plan	IFR
Person 1
Function	Captain Pilot Not Flying
Qualification	Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Experience	Flight Crew Total 7918 Flight Crew Type 1648
Events
Anomaly	Aircraft Equipment Problem Critical Deviation - Procedural Published Material / Policy Deviation - Procedural Maintenance

B767 captain reported they almost departed before all critical maintenance work was completed on a thrust reverser because of incorrect information from a contract mechanic.