Narrative:

As of today's date; I have become aware of a report that is associated with a flight that I operated in december. The crux of the matter is that I operated an aircraft with an open discrepancy pertaining to the HUD (heads-up display). Concerning this; I can only point out that it was my fervent belief that by virtue of a standing ea (engineering authorization) which did deactivate the HUD by all the prescribed maintenance tasks of the MEL; that the ea would take overriding authority of a MEL and that the open log page would remain open until the discrepancy was corrected. I did not understand that the ea was only instituted to circumvent the work card related to the HUD during the maintenance check.I had come into contact with this aircraft at the last minute prior to operation and did not fully understand how the maintenance history had led to the generation of this ea. It was definitely not my intent to operate the aircraft contrary to policy. The HUD system was in fact rendered inoperative via the same language as the associated MEL; the crew was aware the unit was inoperative; the crew did not use the unit or plan on its use for dispatch.suggest perhaps more relevant oversight by onsite maintenance representatives; better language in the ea. Certainly my responsibility in this is to ask better questions!

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: MD-11 captains operating the same aircraft the day after one another reported an Engineering Authorization deactivated the HUD as part of an MEL and operated the aircraft with an open discrepancy. They both believed the EA would take overriding authority of the MEL.

Narrative: As of today's date; I have become aware of a report that is associated with a flight that I operated in December. The crux of the matter is that I operated an aircraft with an open discrepancy pertaining to the HUD (Heads-up Display). Concerning this; I can only point out that it was my fervent belief that by virtue of a standing EA (Engineering Authorization) which did deactivate the HUD by all the prescribed maintenance tasks of the MEL; that the EA would take overriding authority of a MEL and that the open log page would remain open until the discrepancy was corrected. I did not understand that the EA was only instituted to circumvent the work card related to the HUD during the Maintenance check.I had come into contact with this aircraft at the last minute prior to operation and did not fully understand how the maintenance history had led to the generation of this EA. It was definitely not my intent to operate the aircraft contrary to policy. The HUD system was in fact rendered inoperative via the same language as the associated MEL; the crew was aware the unit was inoperative; the crew did not use the unit or plan on its use for dispatch.Suggest perhaps more relevant oversight by onsite maintenance representatives; better language in the EA. Certainly my responsibility in this is to ask better questions!

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.