Narrative:

The event was a static discharge on climb-out. Climbing through approximately 7;000 we were beginning to enter a broken layer of stratus with extremely light precipitation. Upon barely entering the clouds we saw st. Elmo's fire on the windscreen and then a flash and boom as the static discharge released. Time from the onset of st. Elmo's fire to the discharge was less than 5 seconds. It was a remarkably quick buildup. The clouds had no vertical development to them; no convection and no lightning. We were on top and in the clear by 10;000-11;000 ft. After the discharge we verified that all systems were normal per flight manual irregular procedure. The only item amiss was our TCAS displays on the HSI's were inoperative. We assured the flight attendants and passengers that everything was ok. We sent a maintenance message reporting the static discharge. At cruise we talked to dispatch and maintenance control to discuss the discharge and see if anything else could be done. Maintenance had us reset the TCAS to see if we could get it back but to no avail. We sent in a maintenance code for the TCAS inoperative. After following the flight manual procedure and consultation with maintenance and dispatch we determined it was safe to continue to our destination. Everything was normal for the rest of the flight to our destination.after arrival we were curious to see if we could see any evidence of the discharge on the exterior of the aircraft. We went down to the ramp and saw maintenance already looking the aircraft over. A mechanic showed us several areas that he said were discharge points. The aircraft paint was in fairly good condition making it easy to see the discharge points in the paint on the bottom half of the aircraft. The locations the mechanic showed us all looked similar. They were white roundish spots roughly the size of a quarter that the paint was completely popped off of and in the center of each circle a spot about the size of a pencil eraser was pushed in on the aircraft skin. All of the spots looked fresh and clean. There were 5 or 6 of these spots randomly along the right side of the fuselage between doors 1 and 3. It was clear that these spots were not caused by contact with ground equipment. On the left side of the aircraft we found 3 more of them in a row; several feet apart; angling up and back toward door 2L. They may have continued but the loading bridge was up to door 2L and it blocked our view. The spots on the left side looked just like the ones on the right side. I asked the mechanic what would be done and he said the aircraft would be taken out of service to be properly addressed.our next flight left from the gate next door to the inbound flight. A short time later I noticed that the aircraft we brought in with the static discharge was leaving on time as a transcontinental flight. We were curious again as to what maintenance action had been taken on the aircraft. I printed up the papers for that flight and in the log history it showed the TCAS write-up as being fixed but there was no entry for the static discharge we wrote up. I looked further in to the history and saw the write-up of the static discharge. I then looked to see what had been done. The sign off said the lightning inspection was done but 'no damaged or marks detected; dents noted previously archived'. I would not classify what was pointed out to us by the mechanic as dents. I have a couple of questions I would like answered just so I have a better understanding of how I can determine the maintenance status of an aircraft in the future. Why does the write-up of an item; in this case a static discharge; not show up in the log history that is printed up with the pilot papers? I printed up the flight papers today (the day after the write-up) for a flight in the same aircraft and it again does not show a write-up for the static discharge in the log history. The pilots flying the aircraft today would have no idea the aircraft had a static discharge yesterday. These are the only maintenance papers a pilot sees when flight planning so I am curious why some write-ups get dropped out. As a pilot I would like to know if an aircraft that I am planning to fly had a recent static discharge. Why a few minutes after a mechanic shows us fresh discharge points is the aircraft then signed off as 'no damaged or marks detected'? Were we looking at discharge points? If we were looking at old discharge points then where were the marks from our static discharge? Also if these were old discharge marks and we experienced a static discharge; then why is this aircraft experiencing so many static discharges?

Related reports:

Google
 

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: B757 Captain experiences a static discharge event on climbout. Upon arrival the event is written up and the reporter is shown the discharge points on the fuselage by a Maintenance Technician. The reporter discovers that the write up is not readily available to future crews in the electronic maintenance history and wonders why this information is being withheld.

Narrative: The event was a static discharge on climb-out. Climbing through approximately 7;000 we were beginning to enter a broken layer of stratus with extremely light precipitation. Upon barely entering the clouds we saw St. Elmo's fire on the windscreen and then a flash and boom as the static discharge released. Time from the onset of St. Elmo's fire to the discharge was less than 5 seconds. It was a remarkably quick buildup. The clouds had no vertical development to them; no convection and no lightning. We were on top and in the clear by 10;000-11;000 FT. After the discharge we verified that all systems were normal per Flight Manual irregular procedure. The only item amiss was our TCAS displays on the HSI's were inoperative. We assured the Flight Attendants and passengers that everything was OK. We sent a maintenance message reporting the static discharge. At cruise we talked to Dispatch and Maintenance Control to discuss the discharge and see if anything else could be done. Maintenance had us reset the TCAS to see if we could get it back but to no avail. We sent in a maintenance code for the TCAS inoperative. After following the flight manual procedure and consultation with Maintenance and Dispatch we determined it was safe to continue to our destination. Everything was normal for the rest of the flight to our destination.After arrival we were curious to see if we could see any evidence of the discharge on the exterior of the aircraft. We went down to the ramp and saw Maintenance already looking the aircraft over. A Mechanic showed us several areas that he said were discharge points. The aircraft paint was in fairly good condition making it easy to see the discharge points in the paint on the bottom half of the aircraft. The locations the mechanic showed us all looked similar. They were white roundish spots roughly the size of a quarter that the paint was completely popped off of and in the center of each circle a spot about the size of a pencil eraser was pushed in on the aircraft skin. All of the spots looked fresh and clean. There were 5 or 6 of these spots randomly along the right side of the fuselage between doors 1 and 3. It was clear that these spots were not caused by contact with ground equipment. On the left side of the aircraft we found 3 more of them in a row; several feet apart; angling up and back toward door 2L. They may have continued but the loading bridge was up to door 2L and it blocked our view. The spots on the left side looked just like the ones on the right side. I asked the mechanic what would be done and he said the aircraft would be taken out of service to be properly addressed.Our next flight left from the gate next door to the inbound flight. A short time later I noticed that the aircraft we brought in with the static discharge was leaving on time as a transcontinental flight. We were curious again as to what maintenance action had been taken on the aircraft. I printed up the papers for that flight and in the log history it showed the TCAS write-up as being fixed but there was no entry for the static discharge we wrote up. I looked further in to the history and saw the write-up of the static discharge. I then looked to see what had been done. The sign off said the lightning inspection was done but 'no damaged or marks detected; dents noted previously archived'. I would not classify what was pointed out to us by the Mechanic as dents. I have a couple of questions I would like answered just so I have a better understanding of how I can determine the maintenance status of an aircraft in the future. Why does the write-up of an item; in this case a static discharge; not show up in the log history that is printed up with the pilot papers? I printed up the flight papers today (the day after the write-up) for a flight in the same aircraft and it again does not show a write-up for the static discharge in the log history. The pilots flying the aircraft today would have no idea the aircraft had a static discharge yesterday. These are the only maintenance papers a pilot sees when flight planning so I am curious why some write-ups get dropped out. As a pilot I would like to know if an aircraft that I am planning to fly had a recent static discharge. Why a few minutes after a mechanic shows us fresh discharge points is the aircraft then signed off as 'no damaged or marks detected'? Were we looking at discharge points? If we were looking at old discharge points then where were the marks from our static discharge? Also if these were old discharge marks and we experienced a static discharge; then why is this aircraft experiencing so many static discharges?

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.