Narrative:

I took a call from a crew [who had] pushed off the gate reporting an afcs fault on the EICAS. I questioned the crew and found the fault to be intermittent. Having dealt with a similar problem earlier in the morning I proceeded to MEL the fault under the MEL 22-11-01; guidance panel channels. I completed the MEL process and released the aircraft. The next day it was brought to my attention by my manager that the MEL was possibly incorrect. We looked at a download that had been obtained earlier and verified that the fault was an afcs fault. To use MEL 22-11-01-1 the fault should have been an afcs panel fault. The aircraft was on the ground at the time so I stopped the aircraft and dispatched maintenance. They found that the message was not present on the EICAS. They performed operational checks and cleared the MEL. I did not verify the cause of the afcs fault or research the MEL properly before giving the MEL information to the crew and creating the MEL in the computer system. I was focused on speed and delays and not on facts and quality. I personally need to slow down and follow the procedures in place. Read through the MEL thoroughly and ask more questions of the crew. I believe that we are short staffed in the morning on busy days. On slow days we are ok but be were very busy on the day in question. There were 2 controllers and 1 coordinator for almost 100 aircraft.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: A Maintenance Controller reported MEL'ing an autoflight discrepany for a crew who had pushed back from the gate and discovering the next day that an incorrect MEL was applied. When the MEL was issued he felt pressure to release the aircraft on time.

Narrative: I took a call from a crew [who had] pushed off the gate reporting an AFCS FAULT on the EICAS. I questioned the crew and found the fault to be intermittent. Having dealt with a similar problem earlier in the morning I proceeded to MEL the fault under the MEL 22-11-01; Guidance Panel Channels. I completed the MEL process and released the aircraft. The next day it was brought to my attention by my Manager that the MEL was possibly incorrect. We looked at a download that had been obtained earlier and verified that the fault was an AFCS FAULT. To use MEL 22-11-01-1 the fault should have been an AFCS PANEL FAULT. The aircraft was on the ground at the time so I stopped the aircraft and dispatched Maintenance. They found that the message was not present on the EICAS. They performed operational checks and cleared the MEL. I did not verify the cause of the AFCS FAULT or research the MEL properly before giving the MEL information to the crew and creating the MEL in the computer system. I was focused on speed and delays and not on facts and quality. I personally need to slow down and follow the procedures in place. Read through the MEL thoroughly and ask more questions of the crew. I believe that we are short staffed in the morning on busy days. On slow days we are OK but be were very busy on the day in question. There were 2 controllers and 1 coordinator for almost 100 aircraft.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site 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.