Narrative:

On arrival I was meet by the first officer coming off the incoming aircraft and was told the captain was looking in the rear of the aircraft for what she said was a plastic burning smell. The captain came off and said he could not smell anything and the smell only happened on climb out and decent. He said it was probably the pack getting hot as the MEL on the aircraft caused us to run the pack in manual. After he left I was met by the aft flight attendant and was told again about the burning smell. This did not sit well with me. My first officer went outside to do his walk around and came back and told me to come down as I was calling maintenance. On his inspection what he had found was a large brown streak coming out of the flush motor vent and inside it was coated with melted plastic. I called maintenance and a contract mechanic showed up and agreed with the melted plastic. He removed it and called maintenance. He was told to run the packs and flush toilet. After we did and there was no smell; the mechanic was told to sign it off. I said oh no way; you need to look at the motor and figure out how that burnt plastic got there and shut down the system; i.e. Pull the breakers per the MEL because I am not taking this aircraft like this plus the smell only happened in flight so just flushing the toilet on the ground test is a waste. The contract mechanic said he was not signing it off without that either and finally maintenance agreed. The MEL was completed with the inspection and breakers pulled and then we departed shortly after.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: B717 Captain is informed of a burnt plastic smell by the inbound crew that cannot be isolated. The First Officer discovers melted plastic in the flush motor vent during preflight. Maintenance Control believes the problem is solved once the plastic is removed from the vent but the Captain refuses the aircraft until the flush motor is MEL'd and the circuit breakers pulled.

Narrative: On arrival I was meet by the First Officer coming off the incoming aircraft and was told the Captain was looking in the rear of the aircraft for what she said was a plastic burning smell. The Captain came off and said he could not smell anything and the smell only happened on climb out and decent. He said it was probably the pack getting hot as the MEL on the aircraft caused us to run the pack in manual. After he left I was met by the aft Flight Attendant and was told again about the burning smell. This did not sit well with me. My First Officer went outside to do his walk around and came back and told me to come down as I was calling Maintenance. On his inspection what he had found was a large brown streak coming out of the flush motor vent and inside it was coated with melted plastic. I called Maintenance and a contract Mechanic showed up and agreed with the melted plastic. He removed it and called Maintenance. He was told to run the packs and flush toilet. After we did and there was no smell; the Mechanic was told to sign it off. I said oh no way; you need to look at the motor and figure out how that burnt plastic got there and shut down the system; i.e. pull the breakers per the MEL because I am not taking this aircraft like this plus the smell only happened in flight so just flushing the toilet on the ground test is a waste. The contract Mechanic said he was not signing it off without that either and finally Maintenance agreed. The MEL was completed with the inspection and breakers pulled and then we departed shortly after.

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.