A321
Troubleshooting; Training / Qualification; Communication Breakdown; Time Pressure
Aircraft Equipment Problem Less Severe; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Maintenance; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
General Release Refused / Aircraft Not Accepted; General Maintenance Action; General Flight Cancelled / Delayed
Aircraft; Human Factors; Procedure
We were waiting at the gate when the plane came in. I talked to the inbound Captain. He told me they wrote up one of the gear indicator lights. I waited until all the passengers had deplaned. When I got to the cockpit the First Officer and Maintenance was there. Maintenance was working on replacing the lightbulb in the gear indicator light.Maintenance indicated that there was another problem with the airplane. He said 'the other day I was towing this airplane from the hanger and I noticed a rivet that was deteriorating and hydraulic fluid leaking.' He said 'I didn't write it up then because they're on my case about writing up too much stuff.' he then showed a picture of the rivet and the hydraulic leak that he had taken on his phone. He said 'I think it was Aircraft X.'He left the cockpit at this time and we started pre-flighting the airplane. He came back with a fixed light and left and took the book. The First Officer did the walk around. We loaded the passengers. It was departure time and we still do not have the logbook. We called maintenance and they told us that someone would be out to talk to us in 10 minutes but gave us no reason why. At this time we find out that the maintenance had written up the rivet and the hydraulic leak. They eventually took the airplane out of service we changed airplanes and flew on a different airplane.It is unacceptable that maintenance found an issue with the airplane and continue to let it fly for undisclosed number of days and then later took it out of service. If this is the case it continued to fly for three days with this deteriorated rivet and hydraulic leak.I am not sure why this happened. If Maintenance found a deteriorated rivet and a hydraulic leak it should've been dealt with immediately. They should not let it fly around for three days and then decide to write it up.The maintenance personnel that found the deteriorated rivet and hydraulic leak should be talked to because it's unacceptable to allow this airplane to fly around for three days with this when they knew it had an issue.
A321 Captain reported that a maintenance technician failed to document known problems with an aircraft; resulting in the aircraft flying for several days in unairworthy condition.