B757 Undifferentiated or Other Model
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Flight Crew Last 90 Days 180; Flight Crew Total 15000; Flight Crew Type 7000
Aircraft Equipment Problem Critical; Aircraft Equipment Problem Less Severe; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Other / Unknown
General None Reported / Taken
Logbook Entry; Procedure; Aircraft; Company Policy; Environment - Non Weather Related; Human Factors
Our aircraft had an APU that had been placed on MEL two days earlier stateside and then flown on three transatlantic crossings prior to our leg. The log showed 'APU auto shutdown on ground.' Aircraft sat [at the stateside airport] on the day prior to this flight for 8 hours between two of those legs. Apparently NO EFFORT was made to investigate or repair APU. [Events on our] leg: After starting engines (ground air start at gate and crossbleed start after push); the R CTR FUEL pump failed to activate; leaving the PRESS discrete light and EICAS message. Operations made us park on a hard stand with no APU; and told us no ground air available. [We] had to remove passengers due to excessive temperature after about 45 minutes. After Local Contract Maintenance repaired the fuel pump issue; it took operations more than one hour to re board passengers via buses. All this time; our original gate with a jetway remained OPEN; and we could have been parked on it. Next; ATC dropped our flight plan; despite the fact that I had extended it myself one hour before attempted second push. It took over 40 minutes and multiple texts and calls to Flight operations to get a new flight plan and push. [During these events operations] would not answer our radio calls; but we heard them answer other aircraft. TERRIBLE ground handling at this station! Extreme street noise combined with a low floor in hotel resulted in just 3 hours sleep immediately prior to this duty period. An excellent First Officer kept me alert and engaged; along with caffeine and good CRM. Additional maintenance issues: one lavatory was already MEL'd due to a leak; and then the forward lavatory was found to have an extremely loose handle in flight (borderline failure.) Also; heavy nose gear vibration and noise above 60 KTS on both takeoff and landing. Also; wing tanks never showed more than 600 LBS imbalance in flight above 10;000 FT; then imbalance appeared larger on final approach and kept increasing all the way to gate; blocked in indicating 5.6 L and only 4.0 R wing tank. Appeared likely gauge indication error.
The Captain of an international B757 flight listed a litany of maintenance; ground handling; layover facility faults and passenger mishandlings on a single transoceanic departure many of which would have been eliminated or ameliorated by the repair of an inoperative APU sometime during an eight hour stateside break between multiple transatlantic operations since it was deferred.