Regional Jet 200 ER/LR (CRJ200)
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Situational Awareness
Aircraft Equipment Problem Less Severe; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
Flight Crew Returned To Departure Airport; Flight Crew Became Reoriented; General Maintenance Action
Human Factors
On takeoff; right after rotation; we heard a flapping sound on the left side of the flight deck. During the preflight back at the gate; the FO was doing the walk around and was unable to remove the standby pitot cover; so was going to wait until the jet bridge was pulled up and remove it then. After he completed his walk around; the gate agent was pulling up the jet bridge. The FO was busy getting onboard the plane and doing his preflight duties; he forgot to remove the standby pitot cover. I did not call for an acceptance checklist; we went right to the before start checklist. Nobody noticed the pitot cover on the ground crew; so we pushed back and taxied out.After takeoff; when we heard the flapping sound; the FO knew right away what it was. We circled back around to land.Suggestions for avoiding this:Don't be in a hurry. Call for all appropriate checklists. Be more aware of what's going on; it is a very busy time trying to get a flight out.From now on I'm going to try to be more involved in the FO duties; trying to stay on top of things better during busy times.
The omission of the acceptance checklist was the primary cause and point where the error should have been trapped to ensure that this event did not happen. It is evident now to both crew members the gravity of this error and the importance of the acceptance check. It is also important to take the extra second during the initial preflight to ensure all safety equipment is removed and deferral of removing the covers should be avoided regardless of jet bridge location/ inability to reach the cover.
CRJ-200 flight crew reported taking off with the standby pitot cover still in place; necessitating a return to the airport to get it removed.