A Q400 first officer reported that several legs were marred by crew errors due to the workload of de...

Narrative:

First leg was 15 minutes with a lot to do in a limited time period. Even though the flying pilot had slowed to 230 KTS; the non-flying pilot was so task saturated with the pressurization controller and other tasks that the flying pilot had to take the radio calls. On climbout on the second leg the non-flying pilot was 'heads in' the cockpit fiddling with the cabin controller; at the 10;000 foot flow he realized that he had not completed the after takeoff flow or checklist. In addition; there was confusion with radio communications as departure control cleared us to turn left to a heading of 220 degrees to intercept J36. We were already left of J36 and once again; due to being 'heads in' the cockpit; lack of situational awareness made if very confusing to figure out what departure was asking us to do. After querying departure; they cleared us a right turn to 250 to intercept J36. Eventually; we realized we hadn't called the station for out times and called them at cruise. Manual pressurization takes one pilot out of the loop. Luckily we didn't have another emergency to deal with on top of the cabin pressurization. As I have always stated; I believe manual pressurization is a hole in our 'swiss cheese' that will someday get a crew in big trouble. We should not be allowed to fly passengers with this MEL. Many mistakes were done just to comply with this MEL.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: A Q400 First Officer reported that several legs were marred by crew errors due to the workload of dealing with their deferred cabin pressure controller.

Narrative: First leg was 15 minutes with a lot to do in a limited time period. Even though the flying pilot had slowed to 230 KTS; the non-flying pilot was so task saturated with the pressurization controller and other tasks that the flying pilot had to take the radio calls. On climbout on the second leg the non-flying pilot was 'heads in' the cockpit fiddling with the cabin controller; at the 10;000 foot flow he realized that he had not completed the after takeoff flow or checklist. In addition; there was confusion with radio communications as departure control cleared us to turn left to a heading of 220 degrees to intercept J36. We were already left of J36 and once again; due to being 'heads in' the cockpit; lack of situational awareness made if very confusing to figure out what departure was asking us to do. After querying departure; they cleared us a right turn to 250 to intercept J36. Eventually; we realized we hadn't called the station for out times and called them at cruise. Manual pressurization takes one pilot out of the loop. Luckily we didn't have another emergency to deal with on top of the cabin pressurization. As I have always stated; I believe manual pressurization is a hole in our 'swiss cheese' that will someday get a crew in big trouble. We should not be allowed to fly passengers with this MEL. Many mistakes were done just to comply with this MEL.

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.

Attributes
ACN	896604
Time
Date	201007
Local Time Of Day	0001-0600
Place
Locale Reference	ZZZ.TRACON
State Reference	US
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	Q400
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 121
Flight Phase	Climb
Flight Plan	IFR
Component
Aircraft Component	Pressurization Control System
Person 1
Function	First Officer Pilot Not Flying
Qualification	Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Events
Anomaly	ATC Issue All Types Aircraft Equipment Problem Less Severe Deviation - Procedural Clearance Deviation - Procedural Published Material / Policy Deviation - Track / Heading All Types

A Q400 first officer reported that several legs were marred by crew errors due to the workload of dealing with their deferred cabin pressure controller.