Widebody Transport
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Aircraft Equipment Problem Less Severe; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
General Maintenance Action
Aircraft; Company Policy
I was informed today by my company that I may want to file an ASAP report for this flight. Up until this moment I did not see any reason for the report; but I am filing one at the suggestion of company management. The issue is operating my flight with a broken slat cable. I landed and was notified while heading to the hotel by the FO that there was a cable hanging from the right slat that he noticed on preflight; but didn't tell me about.He told me a long story about how he was told by flight management that his preflights were too thorough and were finding things 'out of the scope' of his walkarounds. He said that he was told (and showed me a letter verifying the fact) that if he wrote anything up that was not in the prescribed walk around procedure that he would be fired. I was upset that he did not tell me about the cable; but after hearing his story I can see why he might not want to bring problems to the captain's attention. He told me he let maintenance know about the problem so they could write it up before the next flight. This was something I did not see on my outside safety check and was in my normal scan for preflight safety checks.If I am to believe what the first officer told me; this event was caused by pressure from my company not to write up know deficiencies with the aircraft. If true; this is a serious problem that needs to be addressed. First Officer later showed me many photos of the poor condition of many of the company aircraft whose problems were overlooked to keep the flights going. Please investigate this problem. Encourage pilots not to look the other way when problems with the aircraft are noticed. Pilots should be encouraged to help keep the aircraft safe.
Air carrier Captain was informed by his First Officer after the flight that there was a cable hanging from the right slat that he noticed during preflight; but didn't tell him about. The First Officer told the Captain that he had been admonished by the company because his preflights were 'too through' and that if he wrote anything up that was not in the prescribed walkaround procedure he would be fired.