Narrative:

After 4-5 write ups over 3-4 days pertaining to autopilot pitch trim; autopilot deferred cat B3 expires three days later. Airplane drops dead the third day and is ferried early am. Hstcu replaced. Airplane does not complete 4 flights; or 1 flight day requirement. Maintenance control advised of ferry flight. Deferral mysteriously extended verbally for another 3 days. Maintenance computer showed also FCC 1/2 fault; codes = repair. Maintenance control did not address issue. Maintenance control stated that airplane would end up in ZZZ and per mr. X 'would remain grounded until it was fixed' over recorded line. Company wanted to fly airplane four legs and ground airplane based on convenience. Captain refused airplane based on known discrepancy of FCC 1 and 2 faults.upper management's desire to move the airplane at all cost. Maintenance control needed to ferry the airplane to ensure it was fixed. However; the egregious use of the MEL to then ground the airplane based on a convenient location is clearly a violation of the preamble of the MEL. Furthermore; FAA policy letter 34 clearly states that 'MEL conditions and limitations do not relieve the operator from determining that the aircraft is in condition for safe operation with items of equipment inoperative.' the repeat write ups do not appear to have generated a level 1 alert; a violation of the company gmm; and the airplane was dispatched with a known fault of FCC 1/2 as noted in the logbook.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: CRJ200 flight crew reports being asked to continue flying an aircraft with the autopilot deferred. This occurred over several days and the aircraft is eventually refused and ferried for maintenance.

Narrative: After 4-5 write ups over 3-4 days pertaining to autopilot pitch trim; autopilot deferred Cat B3 expires three days later. Airplane drops dead the third day and is ferried early am. HSTCU replaced. Airplane does not complete 4 flights; or 1 flight day requirement. Maintenance Control advised of ferry flight. Deferral mysteriously extended verbally for another 3 days. Maintenance Computer showed also FCC 1/2 Fault; codes = Repair. Maintenance Control did not address issue. Maintenance Control stated that airplane would end up in ZZZ and per Mr. X 'would remain grounded until it was fixed' over recorded line. Company wanted to fly airplane four legs and ground airplane based on convenience. Captain refused airplane based on known discrepancy of FCC 1 and 2 faults.Upper Management's desire to move the airplane at all cost. Maintenance Control needed to ferry the airplane to ensure it was fixed. However; the egregious use of the MEL to then ground the airplane based on a convenient location is clearly a violation of the preamble of the MEL. Furthermore; FAA Policy Letter 34 clearly states that 'MEL conditions and limitations do not relieve the operator from determining that the aircraft is in condition for safe operation with items of equipment inoperative.' The repeat write ups do not appear to have generated a Level 1 alert; a violation of the company GMM; and the airplane was dispatched with a known fault of FCC 1/2 as noted in the logbook.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of July 2013 and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.