B737 Undifferentiated or Other Model
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Flight Crew Last 90 Days 212; Flight Crew Total 4312; Flight Crew Type 4312
Training / Qualification
Aircraft Equipment Problem Less Severe; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Maintenance; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
General Maintenance Action
Procedure
After a very lengthy delay due to weather in ZZZ; Our Aircraft Arrived from a diversion. Our flight was to be turned quickly. During preflight; my FO noticed torn and hanging metal speed tape on the aft inside panel of the #2 engine strut. He took pictures and came to me with his concerns. Nothing was in logbook to define why the tape was there in the first place. Maintenance was called and I started looking into the logbook in depth. I had to go a ways back; but I did find a page dated June 5 that showed that the panel 'In a heat exhaust area' was being exposed to high temps due to the fact the panel was improperly painted with wrong paint that was not a heat sensitive paint. The paint was coming off due to high exhaust temps flowing aft over the panel from the #2 engine exhaust area. Due to the fact that the panel was carbon fiber; it either has to be painted with the right HEAT guarding paint or they could put speed tape on it and fly it with inspections due at each airport or leg completed to make sure temporary tape fix was staying on. In our case no maintenance had come to the a/c and thus no maintenance personnel saw the tape. After advising maintenance they came out and cleaned area and reapplied speed tape. They assured me it would stick. I had the flight boarded and we departed very late. During flight; passengers noticed tape coming off and dangling into the slip stream just aft of trailing edge of flaps. When we arrived and found the tape peeled almost all the way off and dangling from strut. That means the carbon fiber area was 'Again' exposed to high heat from #2 eng. exhaust. Maintenance was again called out. They stated that it must not have been cleaned right or applied right and they would take care of it. After cleaning and retaping; I was released for flight. During our initial climb out I heard a rapid banging noise on my L3 window...The aft upper corner seal was coming out. A call was made to Maintenance; and they assured me to continue flt. We wrote up the window and the taping of the pylon because once again the tape was dangling for all my passengers to see. Furthermore; the heat again was damaging the carbon fiber area of the strut...Right? So; in talking with the new crew and maintenance they cleaned strut area AGAIN...reapplied wider 'Better' tape and called it good for the next crew to take. They also pushed the window seal in the best they could and applied speed taped over it to hold it in place. Nice look for passengers boarding a flight huh? [Air carrier] speed tapes jets to keep them flying! I can see the headline now. Wow! This speed taping is wrong. Furthermore; taping this item and having tape come off during flight exposes my aircraft to what? Excessive heat from engine exhaust? Potential damage to area affected? Passengers wondering why tape is coming off the aircraft? And why is it; that when an item like this is found to have been painted wrong it is only placed on DIP and not the OIL list or MEL list? This way the pilot has a way of knowing and looking for the temp fix. Making sure it is secured and or not missing; thus exposing the area to high heat and or damage? And if maintenance is the only one checking on this and it has to be done each and every arrival; then why was this not caught in ZZZ? To me there are too many areas for this to never get done or checked. What if all the tape came off? My first would have probably never noticed it because to us it just looks like a dirty panel! We take off with no knowledge of DIP procedure; Maint doesn't check...maybe busy on other flight....now we are exposed to What? Possibly damaging panel or aircraft. This doesn't seem right!
B737 Captain reported concern over what he saw as inadequate and ineffective maintenance on their Number 2 engine strut.