B737 Undifferentiated or Other Model
Flight Crew Instrument; Flight Crew Multiengine; Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Flight Crew Last 90 Days 184; Flight Crew Total 400; Flight Crew Type 400
Communication Breakdown; Time Pressure
Aircraft Equipment Problem Less Severe; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural MEL / CDL; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
General Flight Cancelled / Delayed; General Maintenance Action
Aircraft; MEL; Procedure
We were originally supposed to have nose number XXX/XXXX (737-800). Looking over the release I saw an entry that the APU had shutdown on [date] in LAX. It was cleared but as I was departing on an ETOPS segment I wanted some further information. I wanted to know why it had shutdown and if a verification flight was needed; and if so; had it been performed? I was patched through to Maintenance Control via Dispatch. It was discovered that a verification flight should have been performed for the APU to be re-established as on demand. Otherwise it should have been deferred under an MEL that would have required the APU to be left running until exiting ETOPS airspace until a cold soak start had been accomplished. As a result we were swapped to a different tail number which is another 737-800 and departed. It was discovered that the airplane flew at least 4 ETOPS segments from the initial problem to when we were assigned the aircraft.
B737 Captain reported that an aircraft was scheduled to fly despite the fact that the APU was on MEL for four prior legs and was not ETOPS capable.