A320
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Situational Awareness
Deviation - Speed All Types; Inflight Event / Encounter Wake Vortex Encounter
Flight Crew Became Reoriented
Aircraft; Environment - Non Weather Related; Human Factors; MEL; Procedure
We had [a Slat Channel] MEL. During clean up and acceleration; the slats were slower than normal to retract. We hit wake turbulence from the aircraft in front of us causing a momentary exceedance of the max flap/slat speed while the slats were still retracting. The event lasted 2 or 3 seconds. Normally the slats retract quicker than with this MEL. Company policy is to retract slats and flaps and accelerate to 250 KIAS. There was no caution in the MEL information concerning the risk of potential overspeed. Also the wake turbulence we encountered added airspeed rapidly assisting in the speed exceeding maximum for configuration.A note of caution in the MEL notes would have been very helpful.
A320 Captain reported a momentary slat overspeed resulted during clean-up after a wake turbulence encounter. A slat channel MEL; which causes the slats to retract slower; was cited as contributing factor.