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Maintenance personnel entered an A320 after arrival; lowered the flaps and discovered flap damage from a hail storm the previous day. The flight crew could not see the damage during a normal walk around with the flaps up prior to their flight.
| Attributes | |
| ACN | 959217 |
| Time | |
| Date | 201107 |
| Local Time Of Day | 0601-1200 |
| Place | |
| Locale Reference | ZZZ.Airport |
| State Reference | US |
| Environment | |
| Flight Conditions | VMC |
| Light | Daylight |
| Aircraft 1 | |
| Make Model Name | A320 |
| Operating Under FAR Part | Part 121 |
| Flight Phase | Parked |
| Flight Plan | IFR |
| Component | |
| Aircraft Component | Trailing Edge Flap |
| Person 1 | |
| Function | Captain Pilot Flying |
| Qualification | Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP) |
| Person 2 | |
| Function | First Officer Pilot Not Flying |
| Events | |
| Anomaly | Aircraft Equipment Problem Critical Ground Event / Encounter Other / Unknown |
Narrative:
After arriving at gate; a mechanic came on the aircraft and lowered the flaps (non-standard action for a post flight). He radioed down to a mechanic on the ground who said that there was hail damage to the flaps (which could only be seen with the flaps extended). Maintenance took the airplane out of service. This hail damage was not detectable from a normal fom approved walk around. The first officer did his normal approved walk around before departure and did not notice or mention to me any damage to the aircraft. If the company has knowledge of some abnormal event like this (the hail storm the previous day); which the crew in out stations may not know about; then maintenance; operations; dispatch or someone in the company should have called all the crew who were flying airplanes that had come from the airport where the damage could have occurred during the hail storm so that maintenance could have performed this inspection before the crew flew the airplanes.
Original NASA ASRS Text
Title: Maintenance personnel entered an A320 after arrival; lowered the flaps and discovered flap damage from a hail storm the previous day. The flight crew could not see the damage during a normal walk around with the flaps up prior to their flight.
Narrative: After arriving at gate; a Mechanic came on the aircraft and lowered the flaps (non-standard action for a post flight). He radioed down to a Mechanic on the ground who said that there was hail damage to the flaps (which could only be seen with the flaps extended). Maintenance took the airplane out of service. This hail damage was not detectable from a normal FOM approved walk around. The First Officer did his normal approved walk around before departure and did not notice or mention to me any damage to the aircraft. If the company has knowledge of some abnormal event like this (the hail storm the previous day); which the crew in out stations may not know about; then Maintenance; Operations; Dispatch or someone in the company should have called all the crew who were flying airplanes that had come from the airport where the damage could have occurred during the hail storm so that Maintenance could have performed this inspection before the crew flew the airplanes.
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.