Large Transport; Low Wing; 2 Turbojet Eng
Dispatch Dispatcher
Communication Breakdown; Situational Awareness
Aircraft Equipment Problem Less Severe; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural FAR; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
Aircraft Aircraft Damaged; General Flight Cancelled / Delayed; General Maintenance Action
Human Factors; Procedure
Station called after flight departed to relay that the handle broke on the rear cargo door. Station took no action to notify crew or maintenance prior to departure. More than likely did not say anything about the broken door handle immediately to avoid a maintenance delay for the flight. Not reporting aircraft damage is a direct threat to safety of flight.Station personnel need to follow procedures or get trained on the procedure to ensure when aircraft damage occurs that maintenance be called. By not calling or notifying anyone until after the plane leaves is a safety issue.
First leg of day two of trip. Aircraft arrived late and incoming C/O advised us the delay leaving was an incorrect MEL on the cargo door system. Current MEL required that both cargo doors be manually opened and closed. Operations procedures for the cockpit was to ensure/verify cargo door indicates closed on the ECAM door page which was completed. After landing we received the two attached messages from dispatch that stated rear cargo door handle was broken in before departure and if we knew about the damage prior to departing. We stated negative. We then received second message from dispatch stating that the departure station called after we were airborne and that the departure station stated we were aware. We again stated no one came up to the cockpit nor did the push back crew indicate anything was wrong with the aircraft. While riding to the hotel in the hotel van several hours later the First Officer and I were discussing the issue when a Flight Attendants (FA) asked what we were discussing. We explained to him that the departure station broke something and stated they told us before departure. The FA then stated that a gate agent jokingly told him that he was bad luck and not to come back since the cargo door had an issue. This was never passed on to the flight deck and if it had we would have had contract maintenance involved with damage to an aircraft prior to flight.MEL caused additional delays to an already late arrival for departure. After the damage was done by the ground crew no one brought the flight deck into the loop. A gate agent that obviously knew something failed to tell the proper individuals; IE the flight deck crew. Once we departed the gate we had a wheels up time and the departure station had plenty of time to inform us that there might be a problem but they did not and then tried to cover themselves once they realized maybe they went about the problem incorrectly.Re-brief out station ramp/gate agents that if anything is damaged to the aircraft while on the ground that they need to inform the flight deck crew; not the flight attendants who have no knowledge as to what constitutes an airworthy aircraft. This could have been much worse had the cargo door come open in flight.
During a turn around flight; ground personnel discovered a cargo door handle broken but failed to notify the crew who departed and were informed by Dispatch after landing about the malfunction. The previous station personnel knew of the anomaly but failed to notify the crew.