Narrative:

Prior to departure; the push back driver came to the cockpit and asked to see me outside. He had found some aircraft damage that he wanted to report. The APU access door had become mangled and then forced closed. The seal of the door is noticeably deformed. I called maintenance and a mechanic responded. When he came to the cockpit I asked if he had inspected the door on the way up. He had. Mechanic then asked if I had written up the damaged door. I had. I gave him the logbook. He signed off the door 'as is'. He then left. A few minutes later I noticed that he and the push back driver were having an 'animated' discussion in front of the plane. When they were done the push back driver returned to the tug. I asked the driver if the mechanic had been giving him a hard time about reporting the damage to the aircraft. The mechanic had disciplined the push back driver for reporting the damage and told the driver that finding damage was not his job. I believe that safety is everyone's responsibility. I think I read that somewhere..... The damaged door is not a safety of flight item. It is damaged and may or may not need to be replaced. But there is no way to tell if the damage; any damage; is already a known issue or not. The only way to find out is to write-up the damage and see what the responding mechanic says. That is exactly what happened. The push back driver was absolutely correct to report something he was unsure about. The mechanic was absolutely wrong to disciplining him for reporting a potential safety violation.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: A Captain reported that when he wrote up an access door that was reported damaged by his pushback driver. The responding mechanic chastised the driver for reporting the damage.

Narrative: Prior to departure; the push back driver came to the cockpit and asked to see me outside. He had found some aircraft damage that he wanted to report. The APU access door had become mangled and then forced closed. The seal of the door is noticeably deformed. I called Maintenance and a mechanic responded. When he came to the cockpit I asked if he had inspected the door on the way up. He had. Mechanic then asked if I had written up the damaged door. I had. I gave him the logbook. He signed off the door 'as is'. He then left. A few minutes later I noticed that he and the push back driver were having an 'animated' discussion in front of the plane. When they were done the push back driver returned to the tug. I asked the driver if the Mechanic had been giving him a hard time about reporting the damage to the aircraft. The Mechanic had disciplined the push back driver for reporting the damage and told the driver that finding damage was not his job. I believe that safety is everyone's responsibility. I think I read that somewhere..... The damaged door is not a safety of flight item. It is damaged and may or may not need to be replaced. But there is no way to tell if the damage; any damage; is already a known issue or not. The only way to find out is to write-up the damage and see what the responding mechanic says. That is exactly what happened. The push back driver was absolutely correct to report something he was unsure about. The mechanic was absolutely wrong to disciplining him for reporting a potential safety violation.

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.