MD-88
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP); Flight Crew Flight Engineer; Flight Crew Flight Instructor; Flight Crew Instrument; Flight Crew Multiengine
Flight Crew Last 90 Days 75; Flight Crew Total 15000; Flight Crew Type 5700
Physiological - Other; Workload; Situational Awareness
Aircraft Equipment Problem Critical; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Maintenance; Flight Deck / Cabin / Aircraft Event Smoke / Fire / Fumes / Odor
Flight Crew Returned To Gate; General Maintenance Action; General Release Refused / Aircraft Not Accepted
Human Factors; Procedure; Aircraft
A maintenance change order was applied to aircraft five days before this event. It was a 3 day exemption and was two days expired. Both the copilot and I should have caught this error. The Dispatcher and our Maintenance Department should have caught this error. But it slipped through partly because the Mechanic didn't get the change order into the computer which would have flagged the change order as expired. We also had contributing factors. We were originally scheduled to fly a different aircraft on this flight. At pushback the APU had an oil leak which caused the cabin to fill with smoke. We did not need to evacuate the passengers but it was a bit stressful for the passenger; flight attendants and us. We then were changed to an aircraft arriving at the gate next to us. Of course now we were late and were trying to get everything done quickly yet safely. We did not notice the maintenance change order was beyond the expiration period. End result; did not get the job done correctly!
A MD-88 APU developed an oil leak during pushback which filled the cabin with smoke so the aircraft was returned to the gate where the crew were assigned another aircraft and departed with an open maintenance item.