B757-200
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Flight Crew Last 90 Days 150; Flight Crew Total 22000; Flight Crew Type 6000
Confusion; Time Pressure; Communication Breakdown; Situational Awareness
Aircraft Equipment Problem Less Severe; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
Aircraft Aircraft Damaged; General Maintenance Action; General Flight Cancelled / Delayed
Manuals; Aircraft; Chart Or Publication; Human Factors; Logbook Entry; Procedure
During walk-around; First Officer noticed dents in leading edge of horizontal stabilizer. One particular dent appeared to be in need of Maintenance attention. Maintenance [was] advised by us verbally and aircraft information recorded in ACARS. Maintenance reviewed dents and advised all [dents] are already in the Maintenance system (history) and the one brought to the attention by the First Officer is not in any need of additional attention.Maintenance therefore; while present in the cockpit; stated we were set to go and a new Maintenance Release would be sent shortly. When we realized there could be some delay in receiving the Maintenance Release; we canceled the pushback; not having moved off the gate yet---so as to; not block the alleyway if there was ultimately any delay in receipt of the Maintenance Release.Earlier; we were told a Maintenance Release should be expected very soon. We were told by Pushback [crew] (via interphone) that Maintenance was approaching the tail of the aircraft. Questioning Maintenance; we were told they needed to take another look at the dents on the tail. A return to gate was prompted in ACARS and we told Dispatch as well of the situation that we were technically back in the blocks to show as return to gate. Jetway came back to aircraft after a few minutes after Maintenance advised their additional assessment may take approximately half an hour. We were later told Maintenance could not find the reference in the computer for the previous history of the written-up dents.
Reporter stated the flight was delayed about an hour while Maintenance made a better assessment of the dent damage and made note of the exact dent locations on the Horizontal Stabilizer's leading edge.
A Captain was informed by a First Officer about dents he found in the leading edge of their B757-200 horizontal stabilizer during a walkaround. Maintenance thought the dent damage was previously recorded in their maintenance computer system.