Narrative:

The first officer discovered a large crack in the cowling of aircraft. We took a picture and sent it over to maintenance. They came back with it was only paint and required no further action. I insisted contract maintenance come out and have a look. Contract maintenance came out and looked at the crack. I told him I wanted it written in the aircraft logbook. He went and took a look then returned to tell us it was way worse than paint chipping but was actually a delamination issue. He told us this would take a while and he would need to get a document to make sure it was within limits. He said this could take anywhere from 30 minutes to who knows how long. My reserve availability period (rap) duty started at xa:45. I immediately saw this as a problem for getting the flight completed if it took as long as contract maintenance was hinting. I called crew scheduling. The first scheduler I talked to tried to convince me that my duty started xf:59 and that I could work 16 hours from that point. I disagreed and talked to a supervisor. He told me the same thing and handed me off to a flight time analyst. He also told me the same thing. After reviewing the actual regs I still disagree with all three individuals and realize how poorly written our flight operations manual is and how difficult this concept is because 117. I spent an exhausting 30 minutes dealing with this instead of focusing on the maintenance item that I should have been. Then to make matters worse and hours later the lead flight attendant (flight attendant) comes up and tells me she thinks flight attendant C is timing out. Now I have to do the entire thing again with crew scheduling to ensure my flight attendant is legal to fly! Finally maintenance finishes and the mechanic comes up; describing the item as watch item. He has three separate write ups with sign offs that are very difficult to read on the carbon copy especially. I reviewed them; made sure they were signed; closed up the book and got ready to go. We ensured our flight plan was still current and closed the doors. I made one last call to crew scheduling to ensure duty was within limits but ended up hanging up. If it was out limits but only contractually and even if I was able to get an answer out of them of when I really started we would just disagree. We taxied out and took off; never heard a word from maintenance or dispatch in our 20 minute taxi out. After taking off I wanted to have a closer review of the write up and understand it better since it was probably the most complicated I had ever seen. In reading the 3rd write-up I noticed he had put an nef MEL. I had just taken off with no amended release. The item had been described as watch items not mels so I never even tried to get one. I contact dispatch telling him this and all he gave me was attitude; argument and tried to place blame. I was not worried about blame it was on honest mistake but clearly he was worried and wanted to place blame. He refused to give me an amended release at that time. After landing I tried to call him and discuss. He had already gone home so I shared my story with the supervisor. Fatigue was part of the issue due to starting at xa:45 am; being up since xw:00 am and an exhausting situation and exhausting discussions both with maintenance and crew scheduling.if MEL is attached to watch item don't call it a watch item. Don't make flight crew describe duty limits to 3 different people when calling crew scheduling. Adds to confusion. Flight should not leave gate until amendment received which is contrary to company policy.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: A319 flight crew reported departing without an updated release after a long delay for maintenance that created an MEL that the crew was not aware of. As a reserve crew they were concerned about their duty limits under FAR 117 and spent much time arguing with crew scheduling over their start time and overlooked the MEL item.

Narrative: The First Officer discovered a large crack in the cowling of aircraft. We took a picture and sent it over to maintenance. They came back with it was only paint and required no further action. I insisted contract maintenance come out and have a look. Contract maintenance came out and looked at the crack. I told him I wanted it written in the aircraft logbook. He went and took a look then returned to tell us it was way worse than paint chipping but was actually a delamination issue. He told us this would take a while and he would need to get a document to make sure it was within limits. He said this could take anywhere from 30 minutes to who knows how long. My Reserve Availability Period (RAP) duty started at XA:45. I immediately saw this as a problem for getting the flight completed if it took as long as contract maintenance was hinting. I called crew scheduling. The first scheduler I talked to tried to convince me that my duty started XF:59 and that I could work 16 hours from that point. I disagreed and talked to a supervisor. He told me the same thing and handed me off to a Flight Time Analyst. He also told me the same thing. After reviewing the actual regs I still disagree with all three individuals and realize how poorly written our Flight Operations Manual is and how difficult this concept is because 117. I spent an exhausting 30 minutes dealing with this instead of focusing on the maintenance item that I should have been. Then to make matters worse and hours later the lead Flight Attendant (FA) comes up and tells me she thinks flight attendant C is timing out. Now I have to do the entire thing again with crew scheduling to ensure my flight attendant is legal to fly! Finally maintenance finishes and the mechanic comes up; describing the item as watch item. He has three separate write ups with sign offs that are very difficult to read on the Carbon Copy especially. I reviewed them; made sure they were signed; closed up the book and got ready to go. We ensured our flight plan was still current and closed the doors. I made one last call to crew scheduling to ensure duty was within limits but ended up hanging up. If it was out limits but only contractually and even if I was able to get an answer out of them of when I really started we would just disagree. We taxied out and took off; never heard a word from maintenance or dispatch in our 20 minute taxi out. After taking off I wanted to have a closer review of the write up and understand it better since it was probably the most complicated I had ever seen. In reading the 3rd write-up I noticed he had put an NEF MEL. I had just taken off with no amended release. The item had been described as watch items not MELs so I never even tried to get one. I contact dispatch telling him this and all he gave me was attitude; argument and tried to place blame. I was not worried about blame it was on honest mistake but clearly he was worried and wanted to place blame. He refused to give me an amended release at that time. After landing I tried to call him and discuss. He had already gone home so I shared my story with the supervisor. Fatigue was part of the issue due to starting at XA:45 AM; being up since XW:00 AM and an exhausting situation and exhausting discussions both with maintenance and crew scheduling.If MEL is attached to watch item don't call it a watch ITEM. Don't make flight crew describe duty limits to 3 different people when calling crew scheduling. Adds to confusion. Flight should not leave gate until amendment received which is contrary to company policy.

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.