A319
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Other / Unknown
Aircraft Equipment Problem Less Severe; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Security
General Maintenance Action
Human Factors; Procedure
Upon arrival the Flight Attendant brought a passenger life jacket to me from the back stating that it was found in a compartment by the [forward left] door and unsure if it was an extra life vest or one that had been knocked out of its stowage compartment on an earlier flight. Upon looking at the life jacket I noted that it was out of date. I called Maintenance to have it replaced and to find out where it came from. Maintenance brought a new serviceable life jacket and the Mechanic and I started to look for where it may have come from. We found a missing life vest at seat 8D. Now wondering why we had an out of service date life vest on board I randomly checked two other underseat life vests and found an additional out of date life vest. At that point I wrote up the two out of date life vests and requested that all life vests on the aircraft be checked before our [next] flight. At that point Maintenance had found 26 out of date life vests and 4 missing life vests. I also notified the Chief Pilot's office as to what was going on with our flight. After have all missing life vest and out of date life vest replaced we left approximately 45 minutes late. Our flight had a security inspection before our departure and no discrepancies or missing life vests were reported. Another Security Check was performed prior to our international departure; and no discrepancies were reported. The security check is suppose to check the life vest stowage compartments to make sure nothing that is not supposed to be there is. Along with checking to make sure a life vest is installed. Additionally; I was told by our Maintenance people that Maintenance is supposed to check the service dates of the life vests on a regular a frequent basis. The date on the out of date life vests was a couple of months out of date! Looks to me like [procedures] were not followed by Security Inspectors and Maintenance. Additionally; I was told by the Assistant Chief Pilot that the Security Inspectors are not required to notify the Captain of any discrepancies found; only their Lead or Supervisor. (No way to know if this information is passed on or not at this point.) This makes it nearly impossible for the Captain to actively be involved in resolving any problems or even being able to determine if there is a problem to address if the information is not shared with the him. This is a safety issue and a schedule issue both of which are negatively affected by this misguide process. The flight is not supposed to leave until the Captain is satisfied that the aircraft is safe and in compliance with FARs; Company SOPs; and is properly equipped and serviced for the intended route of flight. Clearly this is not possible if information or items found defective by personnel working on the aircraft do not share the information and keep it a secret from the Captain. This is counter productive and potentially a very unsafe procedure.
A Flight Attendant notified that Captain that a stray life vest was found in a compartment; and that the vest was out of date. When Maintenance personnel identified the location of the missing vest; they also discovered that many more life vests were out of date. The Captain was concerned about the maintenance procedures that allowed this to occur as well as the security inspections that did not uncover the discrepancy.