Ground operations employee reported that boeing 737 flight crews are told not to write up engine lea...

Narrative:

It has come to my attention that the 737 pilots are being told to not write up engine leaks and to push off the gate and start the leaking engine and let the gate crew determine if the engine stopped leaking. This by passes a wide range of maintenance manual and other procedures. Aircraft X pushed off the gate the captain requested the ground crew that pushed off determine if the engine stopped leaking they refused the aircraft ground interrupted and came back to the gate were it was properly trouble shot and returned to service. A quote out of the B737 operating states 'if a fluid leak (other than a continuous stream) from any of the engine drains is discovered during the exterior inspection; the engine can be started.'I as an aircraft mechanic I have a hard time believing that someone untrained and who did not follow maintenance manual procedures is able to determine what type of fluid is leaking and were it is leaking from and what the leak limits are. A lot of times the only way to determine what drain is leaking is to open the engine cowls.' as required by 14 crash fire rescue equipment 121.563 all discrepancies discovered by the flight crew shall be entered in the aircraft maintenance logbook (aml) by the flight crew.' there are a lot of dangerous situations that can occur by not checking out a fluid leak endangering both passengers and flight crews; ground crews and maintenance crews by starting a leaking engine.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: Ground operations employee reported that Boeing 737 flight crews are told not to write up engine leaks.

Narrative: It has come to my attention that the 737 pilots are being told to not write up engine leaks and to push off the gate and start the leaking engine and let the gate crew determine if the engine stopped leaking. This by passes a wide range of Maintenance Manual and other procedures. Aircraft X pushed off the gate the Captain requested the ground crew that pushed off determine if the engine stopped leaking they refused the Aircraft ground interrupted and came back to the gate were it was properly trouble shot and returned to service. A quote out of the B737 operating states 'If a fluid leak (other than a continuous stream) from any of the engine drains is discovered during the Exterior Inspection; the engine can be started.'I as an Aircraft Mechanic I have a hard time believing that someone untrained and who did not follow Maintenance Manual procedures is able to determine what type of fluid is leaking and were it is leaking from and what the leak limits are. A lot of times the only way to determine what drain is leaking is to open the engine cowls.' As required by 14 CFR 121.563 all discrepancies discovered by the flight crew shall be entered in the Aircraft Maintenance Logbook (AML) by the flight crew.' There are a lot of dangerous situations that can occur by not checking out a fluid leak endangering both passengers and flight crews; ground crews and Maintenance crews by starting a leaking engine.

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	1504644
Time
Date	201712
Local Time Of Day	0601-1200
Place
Locale Reference	ZZZ.Airport
State Reference	US
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	B737 Undifferentiated or Other Model
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 121
Flight Phase	Parked
Flight Plan	IFR
Component
Aircraft Component	Engine Drain Mast
Person 1
Function	Other / Unknown
Events
Anomaly	Aircraft Equipment Problem Less Severe

Ground operations employee reported that boeing 737 flight crews are told not to write up engine leaks.