Narrative:

Flight duty started as normal and waited for aircraft to arrive at the gate. Aircraft arrived on time and after deplaning we made our way onboard for our outbound flight. Upon scrolling through the systems pages I noticed an odd indication on the hydraulic page with the blue system having 2 amber 'X's' below the word blue and the green and yellow system both showing the correct amber pressure reading of 0. I continued through the system pages to the flight control page and noted that the hydraulic system letters representing the blue system; the 'B's' were absent from the screen however the indications for the green and yellow systems were showing as required for the respective flight control surfaces. I called maintenance to inquire about the indications and no-one had a good idea of what was really happening. We ran through a couple things while maintenance control called local maintenance only to get more confused as to what was exactly happening. After running tests maintenance finally found an MEL for the amber X indications and one last test was to completely shut the aircraft down; a 'global reset'; and leave it off for 10 minutes. Maintenance accomplished the task with no fix so the MEL was applied. During the new cockpit preparation we encountered a new issue with opp FMC in progress showing on the number 1 mcdu and the loss of FD 1 on the pfds. Of course maintenance was still onboard finishing up the hydraulic issue so the trouble shooting began as they tried to figure out the issue.long story short; after a couple hours of working this issue; maintenance placed the FMC 1 on MEL and along with it came another 5 mels. We returned to the aircraft after we were told it was good to go by maintenance and started to go over the multiple pages of logbook entries and new MEL's that we had to deal with and read up on. When we entered the cockpit I had noticed that IRS3 had a solid white 'align' light and had started a new 10 minute alignment process on the one IRS. I actually thought that maintenance had restarted the IRS as part of the new list of mels that were placed upon the aircraft and thought nothing more of it. Upon receiving the final weight and balance paperwork we transferred ground power with a very hard transfer and noticed that IRS 3 had once again fallen offline and automatically restarted itself with a new 10 minute align process. IRS 1 and 2 were both showing no anomalies and remained aligned. Maintenance was present and we waited for it to fully align again and shortly thereafter it fell off again and restarted itself with a new full alignment on that single IRS. It was at this point and now 6 hours into our delay and almost all of it dealing with MEL procedures and adding new mels to the aircraft that we started to get a feeling that something just wasn't right with the aircraft and began to contemplate denying the aircraft. I began to send messages to dispatch about our problems and concerns and also called the chief pilot duty phone to at least let them know where we stood at that point in time. During this time we were trying to convey our concerns to the rest of the crew and the gate agents and that we didn't know if we would feel comfortable with the aircraft as well. We continued to examine the MEL procedures in the MEL and had noticed that when maintenance had placed the MEL on the FMC that it stated that the aircraft was allowed 3 flight legs as a limit however the orange sticker indicated that the aircraft drop dead date was [the next day] (there is actually no drop dead date listed in the MEL; it's a flight leg limit). This essentially meant that the aircraft was now good to get to the destination yet it was not good to return date wise. Upon contacting maintenance they said just go ahead and change it to say 3 flight legs versus a date if that made me feel better. This response was another little trigger that had us start to guess what had really been done to the aircraft since the MEL isvery specific as to what it states. This issue; IRS and paperwork; was what we believe to have been fixed so maintenance left the aircraft. We started to go over the new MEL for the IRS 3 issue and we noted that the maintenance procedures required some testing of the aircraft that we know didn't happen since they are performed on the FMC. I know this is not our usual procedure to look for maintenance procedures; but it was the only item for maintenance to accomplish and I just happened to catch it as I looked for the operations procedures. We then had to call maintenance back to the aircraft to accomplish this procedure which took longer than expected and after they arrived at the gate we found out that it was shift change and they didn't have anyone there to get to us until the night shift had arrived. During this time the crew timed out for the night and we were released due to duty limits.our concerns over the thought to deny the aircraft for the flight were due to the fact that now we had spent 6 hours dealing with MEL's with one that couldn't truly be explained with the hydraulic system since a true issue could not be found; then adding an MEL that takes away FMC 1; AP1 and FD1; and culminating in IRS 3 being MEL'd. Adding in that we were now flying this aircraft with downgraded systems into a short runway to an uncontrolled field at night. True the redundant systems are designed for a reason; but we did not feel comfortable taking an aircraft with known deficiencies into this situation. Upon discussing the possible denial with multiple sources including dispatch and the chief pilot's office we finally came to the conclusion that we would probably take the aircraft and expect the best. Of course during this decision to possibly take the aircraft we were waiting for maintenance to show up for the IRS procedure they had missed. When they finally showed up to complete their procedures we noticed that we now were no longer legal to complete our sequence according to far 117 and promptly contacted crew scheduling to let them know we had exceeded our limit. They removed us from the pairing and sent us home.additional information:-one of our flight attendants was distraught over the 'issues' we were experiencing and was crying in the aft galley of the aircraft.-a maintenance employee was there throughout the entire process and actually at one point agreed that he wouldn't feel safe taking that aircraft in its current state either.in 17 years of flying professionally I have never once denied taking an aircraft due to maintenance or other reason. I don't take it lightly that I have a job to do and I try to do it to the best of my ability. This flight just didn't feel right and things just kept adding up to create a feeling of uncertainty. As the crew who was present for the entire process it was much more detailed and problem filled than if we had just shown up at the airport and had this aircraft come to us this way. We personally witnessed maintenance being unable to find a true issue with our first hydraulic problem versus just seeing an MEL that writes off the amber X's but states nothing about the lack of other indications on different system pages. This felt like a band aid that tried to cover an issue that was actually more than skin deep. Then the following issues that just happened to occur as we went along did not make us feel very confident in the aircraft.

Google
 

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: A320 flight crew reported a maintenance issue that started with a blue hydraulic system pressure indication that continued into a rolling six hour delay and multiple MELs. The situation was discussed with a duty manager who indicated that the crew should take the flight or face disciplinary action. When the crew reached their 12 hour duty limit they elected not to extend.

Narrative: Flight duty started as normal and waited for aircraft to arrive at the gate. Aircraft arrived on time and after deplaning we made our way onboard for our outbound flight. Upon scrolling through the systems pages I noticed an odd indication on the hydraulic page with the blue system having 2 Amber 'X's' below the word blue and the Green and Yellow system both showing the correct Amber pressure reading of 0. I continued through the system pages to the flight control page and noted that the hydraulic system letters representing the blue system; the 'B's' were absent from the screen however the indications for the Green and Yellow systems were showing as required for the respective flight control surfaces. I called maintenance to inquire about the indications and no-one had a good idea of what was really happening. We ran through a couple things while Maintenance Control called local maintenance only to get more confused as to what was exactly happening. After running tests maintenance finally found an MEL for the amber X indications and one last test was to completely shut the aircraft down; a 'Global Reset'; and leave it off for 10 minutes. Maintenance accomplished the task with no fix so the MEL was applied. During the new cockpit preparation we encountered a new issue with OPP FMC IN PROGRESS showing on the number 1 MCDU and the loss of FD 1 on the PFDs. Of course maintenance was still onboard finishing up the hydraulic issue so the trouble shooting began as they tried to figure out the issue.Long story short; after a couple hours of working this issue; maintenance placed the FMC 1 on MEL and along with it came another 5 MELs. We returned to the aircraft after we were told it was good to go by maintenance and started to go over the multiple pages of logbook entries and new MEL's that we had to deal with and read up on. When we entered the cockpit I had noticed that IRS3 had a solid white 'align' light and had started a new 10 minute alignment process on the one IRS. I actually thought that maintenance had restarted the IRS as part of the new list of MELs that were placed upon the aircraft and thought nothing more of it. Upon receiving the final weight and balance paperwork we transferred ground power with a very hard transfer and noticed that IRS 3 had once again fallen offline and automatically restarted itself with a new 10 minute align process. IRS 1 and 2 were both showing no anomalies and remained aligned. Maintenance was present and we waited for it to fully align again and shortly thereafter it fell off again and restarted itself with a new full alignment on that single IRS. It was at this point and now 6 hours into our delay and almost all of it dealing with MEL procedures and adding new MELs to the aircraft that we started to get a feeling that something just wasn't right with the aircraft and began to contemplate denying the aircraft. I began to send messages to dispatch about our problems and concerns and also called the Chief Pilot duty phone to at least let them know where we stood at that point in time. During this time we were trying to convey our concerns to the rest of the crew and the gate agents and that we didn't know if we would feel comfortable with the aircraft as well. We continued to examine the MEL procedures in the MEL and had noticed that when maintenance had placed the MEL on the FMC that it stated that the aircraft was allowed 3 flight legs as a limit however the orange sticker indicated that the aircraft drop dead date was [the next day] (there is actually no drop dead date listed in the MEL; it's a flight leg limit). This essentially meant that the aircraft was now good to get to the destination yet it was not good to return date wise. Upon contacting maintenance they said just go ahead and change it to say 3 flight legs versus a date if that made me feel better. This response was another little trigger that had us start to guess what had really been done to the aircraft since the MEL isvery specific as to what it states. This issue; IRS and paperwork; was what we believe to have been fixed so maintenance left the aircraft. We started to go over the new MEL for the IRS 3 issue and we noted that the maintenance procedures required some testing of the aircraft that we know didn't happen since they are performed on the FMC. I know this is not our usual procedure to look for maintenance procedures; but it was the only item for maintenance to accomplish and I just happened to catch it as I looked for the operations procedures. We then had to call maintenance back to the aircraft to accomplish this procedure which took longer than expected and after they arrived at the gate we found out that it was shift change and they didn't have anyone there to get to us until the night shift had arrived. During this time the crew timed out for the night and we were released due to duty limits.Our concerns over the thought to deny the aircraft for the flight were due to the fact that now we had spent 6 hours dealing with MEL's with one that couldn't truly be explained with the hydraulic system since a true issue could not be found; then adding an MEL that takes away FMC 1; AP1 and FD1; and culminating in IRS 3 being MEL'd. Adding in that we were now flying this aircraft with downgraded systems into a short runway to an uncontrolled field at night. True the redundant systems are designed for a reason; but we did not feel comfortable taking an aircraft with known deficiencies into this situation. Upon discussing the possible denial with multiple sources including dispatch and the chief pilot's office we finally came to the conclusion that we would probably take the aircraft and expect the best. Of course during this decision to possibly take the aircraft we were waiting for maintenance to show up for the IRS procedure they had missed. When they finally showed up to complete their procedures we noticed that we now were no longer legal to complete our sequence according to FAR 117 and promptly contacted crew scheduling to let them know we had exceeded our limit. They removed us from the pairing and sent us home.Additional information:-One of our flight attendants was distraught over the 'issues' we were experiencing and was crying in the aft galley of the aircraft.-A maintenance employee was there throughout the entire process and actually at one point agreed that he wouldn't feel safe taking that aircraft in its current state either.In 17 years of flying professionally I have never once denied taking an aircraft due to maintenance or other reason. I don't take it lightly that I have a job to do and I try to do it to the best of my ability. This flight just didn't feel right and things just kept adding up to create a feeling of uncertainty. As the crew who was present for the entire process it was much more detailed and problem filled than if we had just shown up at the airport and had this aircraft come to us this way. We personally witnessed maintenance being unable to find a true issue with our first hydraulic problem versus just seeing an MEL that writes off the Amber X's but states nothing about the lack of other indications on different system pages. This felt like a band aid that tried to cover an issue that was actually more than skin deep. Then the following issues that just happened to occur as we went along did not make us feel very confident in the 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.