Narrative:

During my preflight inspection I noticed significant weakness in my seat-back. After closer inspection I believe the seat-back was broken on the captain's seat. I wrote up my concern and contacted line maintenance. When the mechanic arrived at the aircraft; he looked at the seat-back and after a few minutes of inspection said that he would have to change the seat. I estimate the total time to change the seat was less than 45 minutes including the time it took to get the seat from stores.unfortunately; during the seat swap; the two mechanics and the inspector did not transfer the life vest from the pouch in the old seat to the pouch in the new seat. After the repair was performed; neither I nor the first officer noticed that the life vest was missing either. The first officer had verified the equipment was onboard during his initial safety inspection; however; neither of us checked a second time after the seat change. As I exited the airplane at our destination I noticed the life-vest pouch seemed empty and checked it. At that point we contacted maintenance. It was determined that the life-vest for the jumpseat could be used for the captain's seat and the jumpseat was subsequently deferred.this is a very unusual situation. I have never before been part of a cockpit seat change. One suggestion would be to change the location of the life-vest to somewhere on the wall of the cockpit. Two mechanics; an inspector mechanic; and two line pilots all missed that the life-vest was missing. Perhaps a line should be added to the maintenance manual to move the vest from one seat to the other.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: Following the replacement of a broken Captain's seat; the flight crew of a B717 failed to note the Captain's life-vest had not been transferred to the new seat. They flew one leg without the required life-vest in the seat although one in the observer's seat was on board and later placed in the proper location. The observer's seat was then deferred until a replacement could be obtained.

Narrative: During my preflight inspection I noticed significant weakness in my seat-back. After closer inspection I believe the seat-back was broken on the Captain's seat. I wrote up my concern and contacted Line Maintenance. When the Mechanic arrived at the aircraft; he looked at the seat-back and after a few minutes of inspection said that he would have to change the seat. I estimate the total time to change the seat was less than 45 minutes including the time it took to get the seat from stores.Unfortunately; during the seat swap; the two mechanics and the Inspector did not transfer the life vest from the pouch in the old seat to the pouch in the new seat. After the repair was performed; neither I nor the First Officer noticed that the life vest was missing either. The First Officer had verified the equipment was onboard during his initial safety inspection; however; neither of us checked a second time after the seat change. As I exited the airplane at our destination I noticed the life-vest pouch seemed empty and checked it. At that point we contacted Maintenance. It was determined that the life-vest for the jumpseat could be used for the Captain's seat and the jumpseat was subsequently deferred.This is a very unusual situation. I have never before been part of a cockpit seat change. One suggestion would be to change the location of the life-vest to somewhere on the wall of the cockpit. Two mechanics; an Inspector Mechanic; and two line pilots all missed that the life-vest was missing. Perhaps a line should be added to the maintenance manual to move the vest from one seat to the other.

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.