Narrative:

[Maintenance control] refused the first aircraft after I questioned a write-up saying trouble shooting of a class ii flight control fault showed loss of roll signal from the first officer's (first officer) sidestick. After the troubleshooting diagnostic it was no longer a class ii but a hard fault entry. The controller removed the aircraft from service. Our replacement aircraft had an MEL entry for a pack 1 pre-cooler overheat requiring the number 1 bleed valve be kept closed; the packs operated in low flow; and the cross bleed valve remain open. The aircraft was limited in flight altitude and prohibited from icing conditions. We could operate it to ZZZ from ord but it was scheduled to immediately return to ord with another pilot crew. The dispatcher refused the aircraft because storms were forecast in ord at the aircraft's return arrival time with icing forecast. In both cases the decision to not operate was made not by me; but by others. Granted; I would not operate the first aircraft with a hard side stick fault but [maintenance control] made the call that it was indeed a hard fault. I asked specifically of both [the] dispatcher and [maintenance] controller if I needed to submit the [incident reports] and I was told in both cases they would submit the refusals on their ends. I was obviously not told the truth if it went down as a captain refusal.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: A320 Captain reported that the first aircraft his crew were assigned to was refused by tech ops and the second aircraft was refused by the dispatch. The final report stated 'Captain's refusal' for both aircraft.

Narrative: [Maintenance Control] refused the first aircraft after I questioned a write-up saying trouble shooting of a Class II Flight Control fault showed loss of roll signal from the First Officer's (F/O) sidestick. After the troubleshooting diagnostic it was no longer a Class II but a hard fault entry. The controller removed the aircraft from service. Our replacement aircraft had an MEL entry for a pack 1 pre-cooler overheat requiring the number 1 bleed valve be kept closed; the packs operated in low flow; and the cross bleed valve remain open. The aircraft was limited in flight altitude and prohibited from icing conditions. We could operate it to ZZZ from ORD but it was scheduled to immediately return to ORD with another pilot crew. The Dispatcher refused the aircraft because storms were forecast in ORD at the aircraft's return arrival time with icing forecast. In both cases the decision to not operate was made not by me; but by others. Granted; I would not operate the first aircraft with a hard side stick fault but [Maintenance Control] made the call that it was indeed a hard fault. I asked specifically of both [the] Dispatcher and [Maintenance] Controller if I needed to submit the [incident reports] and I was told in both cases they would submit the refusals on their ends. I was obviously not told the truth if it went down as a Captain refusal.

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.