BAe 125 Series 800
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Communication Breakdown; Troubleshooting
Aircraft Equipment Problem Critical; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Maintenance; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
Aircraft Aircraft Damaged; General Release Refused / Aircraft Not Accepted; General Maintenance Action
Aircraft; Company Policy; Manuals; Procedure
We were assigned and aircraft for an early morning departure. The plane had arrived a few hours prior. During preflight there was an overwhelmingly strong odor of fuel when I preflighted the right wheel well area. The entire bottom of the plane was wet with condensation. I ran my finger along the bottom skid and it became completely covered in jet fuel. I wrote the airplane up for a fuel leak. Later in the day I talked to the Mechanic who worked on it. He had cleaned the bottom of the airplane and he showed me a hole in the skid where the fuel was coming from. He told me the plan was to sign it off as an acceptable leak so that it could be moved somewhere were it could be fixed. The next morning I ran into the crew assigned to the aircraft. I discovered that they were not moving it to a place where it could be fixed; but were flying several revenue legs with the aircraft. I informed them of the prior day's history.Having another of several recent could not duplicate write ups this morning I also want to report something else that has been bothering me. In December I had a bad fuel leak from the refueling panel area. There is a report on file concerning the incident. I don't believe I was the first to have a leak in this area in this aircraft; and since December I have seen probably ten write ups on this aircraft for a fuel leak in the refueling/ventral tank area. How many fuel leaks in the same aircraft and the same area that obviously haven't been fixed are needed before this is considered a major safety problem?I would recommend reviewing the maintenance records from the last year for this aircraft in relation to this fuel leak.
An HS-128-800 Captain reported a fuel leak in the refueling/ventral tank area which apparently had not been repaired since he recorded the leak in the maintenance log nearly nine months earlier.