Narrative:

Upon arriving at the aircraft in tpa during the early morning we found that the airbus 319 aircraft while sitting on the gate had a layer of frost on it; as the low temperature that night had reached approximately 34 degrees fahrenheit. As the captain; I then advised the ground personnel that we would need to de-ice in order to remove the frost from the wings and tail of the aircraft prior to leaving. Of course I was then told by the ground staff that the tpa station did not have any deicing equipment as they rarely if ever have to deal with cold weather conditions such as this. Next; I called dispatch to advise them of the situation for which they did some checking and called me back and too advised that the tpa station was not prepared for such cold weather conditions as this and furthermore; their only suggestion was to wait till the sun comes up to burn the frost off which likely would be three hours or so. I then went down to talk with the ground staff to discuss the situation; which is when someone suggested using water from the potable water truck to spray on the tops of the wings and tail to remove the frost. I acknowledged that the idea sounded good and that I would check some things and would be right back. I went back to the cockpit and checked the outside air temperature and found it was two degrees celsius (36 degrees fahrenheit) with the dew point at minus three degrees celsius. Therefore; with the temperature above freezing and 'increasing' along with the temperature dew point spread greater than three degrees I determined that we did not have active frost; and thus the application of water to the wings and tail of the aircraft would be acceptable to remove the frost. I then instructed the first officer to oversee the process to make certain that the water was applied evenly to both of the wings and the tail of the aircraft. Prior to this commencing; I visually checked the wings again as the fueling process was nearly complete and noted that a majority of the frost on the wings was already melted from the warm fuel in the wings. After approximately 20 minutes the first officer advised that the water application was complete at which point; as the captain; pilot in command; I went down to the ramp and used a belt loader to get up to the top of both the leading edge and trailing edge of the left wing and did a tactile inspection of the top of the wing surface and noted that the critical surfaces (i.e. Leading edges; upper wing surfaces; all control surfaces; and slats/flaps) were free of all frost and the aircraft was safe for flight. We pushed back and took off with nothing unusual noted and the flight continued routinely to its destination. After reviewing a number of manuals the question has arisen to the effect of what is acceptable in removing frost when it is no longer deemed as active. In summary; I must say that I proceeded under the premise that the active frost hold-over tables; did not apply with the given temperature conditions and thus conducted the tactile inspection to assure the process was effective however; I will concede that there seems to be very little if any guidance under these unusual circumstances.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: Deicing was done using a potable water truck at a station without deicing equipment. The reporter later questioned the decision that was made.

Narrative: Upon arriving at the aircraft in TPA during the early morning we found that the Airbus 319 aircraft while sitting on the gate had a layer of frost on it; as the low temperature that night had reached approximately 34 degrees Fahrenheit. As the Captain; I then advised the ground personnel that we would need to de-ice in order to remove the frost from the wings and tail of the aircraft prior to leaving. Of course I was then told by the ground staff that the TPA station did not have any deicing equipment as they rarely if ever have to deal with cold weather conditions such as this. Next; I called dispatch to advise them of the situation for which they did some checking and called me back and too advised that the TPA station was not prepared for such cold weather conditions as this and furthermore; their only suggestion was to wait till the sun comes up to burn the frost off which likely would be three hours or so. I then went down to talk with the ground staff to discuss the situation; which is when someone suggested using water from the potable water truck to spray on the tops of the wings and tail to remove the frost. I acknowledged that the idea sounded good and that I would check some things and would be right back. I went back to the cockpit and checked the outside air temperature and found it was two degrees Celsius (36 degrees Fahrenheit) with the dew point at minus three degrees Celsius. Therefore; with the temperature above freezing and 'increasing' along with the temperature dew point spread greater than three degrees I determined that we did not have active frost; and thus the application of water to the wings and tail of the aircraft would be acceptable to remove the frost. I then instructed the First Officer to oversee the process to make certain that the water was applied evenly to both of the wings and the tail of the aircraft. Prior to this commencing; I visually checked the wings again as the fueling process was nearly complete and noted that a majority of the frost on the wings was already melted from the warm fuel in the wings. After approximately 20 minutes the First Officer advised that the water application was complete at which point; as the Captain; pilot in command; I went down to the ramp and used a belt loader to get up to the top of both the leading edge and trailing edge of the left wing and did a tactile inspection of the top of the wing surface and noted that the critical surfaces (i.e. leading edges; upper wing surfaces; all control surfaces; and slats/flaps) were free of all frost and the aircraft was safe for flight. We pushed back and took off with nothing unusual noted and the flight continued routinely to its destination. After reviewing a number of manuals the question has arisen to the effect of what is acceptable in removing frost when it is no longer deemed as active. In summary; I must say that I proceeded under the premise that the Active Frost Hold-Over Tables; did not apply with the given temperature conditions and thus conducted the tactile inspection to assure the process was effective however; I will concede that there seems to be very little if any guidance under these unusual circumstances.

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.