Narrative:

Flew first leg to ZZZ with open write-up; 'first officer 'speed limit' flag intermittent causes autopilot B to disconnect' in the book and MEL 27-13 accomplished. Release noted also MEL for auto speed brake 27-7 and wing load alleviation system 27-7. On the ground; the speed limit flag was not in view and the speed arcs were visible on the first officer's airspeed indicator. Inflight; speed limit flag and speed arcs were intermittent. When we reviewed the MEL 27-13 paperwork; it appeared that for our situation (speed arcs unreliable); more systems needed to be MEL'ed and have cbs pulled and collared. Captain met with maintenance and it was determined that we were correct. Since the additional items were subsets of MEL 27-13; the logbook entry was not changed. I assumed that we could operate under the same release as well since it was for MEL 27-13. After a conversation with dispatch via ACARS enroute to ZZZ1; it was determined that we had been improperly released; and all mels need to be referenced on the release paperwork. This is a tough one. MEL paperwork is tedious and interpretation varies. To make matters worse; the paper copies include various B737 series instructions. Too much information. Apparently this or a similar conversation had been discussed with previous crews (several had flown the aircraft since the original write-up; but we had no way of knowing that). Some sort of pass down would have been helpful in this case. The fact that calls to maintenance control are recorded can deter crews from calling simply to clarify something like this because we don't want to rat ourselves or a previous crew or a maintenance technician out over a simple technicality. This had very little to do with safety (we flew the jet the same way with and without all the stickers) and a lot to do with fear of a failure to correctly document the situation. The fear to ask the question then creates a safety issue.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: A B737-700 crew reported that their aircraft was released with an open MEL. The MEL paperwork was not referenced on the flight release and because the MEL item was common to this air carrier's mixed B737 fleet type the B737-770 aircraft requirement was different from earlier aircraft models.

Narrative: Flew first leg to ZZZ with open write-up; 'First Officer 'Speed Limit' flag intermittent causes Autopilot B to disconnect' in the book and MEL 27-13 accomplished. Release noted also MEL for Auto Speed Brake 27-7 and Wing Load Alleviation System 27-7. On the ground; the Speed Limit flag was not in view and the speed arcs were visible on the First Officer's airspeed indicator. Inflight; Speed Limit flag and speed arcs were intermittent. When we reviewed the MEL 27-13 paperwork; it appeared that for our situation (speed arcs unreliable); more systems needed to be MEL'ed and have CBs pulled and collared. Captain met with maintenance and it was determined that we were correct. Since the additional items were subsets of MEL 27-13; the logbook entry was not changed. I assumed that we could operate under the same release as well since it was for MEL 27-13. After a conversation with Dispatch via ACARS enroute to ZZZ1; it was determined that we had been improperly released; and all MELs need to be referenced on the release paperwork. This is a tough one. MEL paperwork is tedious and interpretation varies. To make matters worse; the paper copies include various B737 series instructions. Too much information. Apparently this or a similar conversation had been discussed with previous crews (several had flown the aircraft since the original write-up; but we had no way of knowing that). Some sort of pass down would have been helpful in this case. The fact that calls to Maintenance Control are recorded can deter crews from calling simply to clarify something like this because we don't want to rat ourselves or a previous crew or a Maintenance Technician out over a simple technicality. This had very little to do with safety (we flew the jet the same way with and without all the stickers) and a lot to do with fear of a failure to correctly document the situation. The fear to ask the question then creates a safety issue.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of April 2012 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.