B737 first officer reports being encouraged by maintenance to accept an aircraft with an MEL for the...

Attributes
ACN	853429
Time
Date	200909
Local Time Of Day	1201-1800
Place
Locale Reference	ZZZ.Airport
State Reference	US
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	B737-700
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 121
Flight Phase	Parked
Flight Plan	IFR
Component
Aircraft Component	Flap/Slat Indication
Person 1
Function	First Officer Pilot Not Flying
Qualification	Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Events
Anomaly	Aircraft Equipment Problem Less Severe Deviation - Procedural FAR Deviation - Procedural MEL

Narrative:

During preflight I noticed the button was missing from the leading edge devices annunciator panel; and that it was in the test mode. We called maintenence. They decided that they could not fix it and they did not have another to replace it with. Several maintenence personal thought that it could be put on a MEL; and several including the captain and myself believed that it should not. The manager of maintenence assured us over the phone that it was ok for a MEL and that we were reading too much into it. So we decided to take the MEL. At a later date we found out that is was an illegal MEL so we decided to write safety reports.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: B737 First Officer reports being encouraged by Maintenance to accept an aircraft with an MEL for the leading edge device annunciator panel. The crew accepts the aircraft and is later informed that the MEL was improperly applied.

Narrative: During preflight I noticed the button was missing from the leading edge devices annunciator panel; and that it was in the test mode. We called Maintenence. They decided that they could not fix it and they did not have another to replace it with. Several Maintenence personal thought that it could be put on a MEL; and several including the Captain and myself believed that it should not. The Manager of Maintenence assured us over the phone that it was ok for a MEL and that we were reading too much into it. So we decided to take the MEL. At a later date we found out that is was an illegal MEL so we decided to write safety reports.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of April 2012 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.

B737 first officer reports being encouraged by maintenance to accept an aircraft with an MEL for the leading edge device annunciator panel. The crew accepts the aircraft and is later informed that the MEL was improperly applied.