Narrative:

While preflighting the aircraft; my first officer noticed a broken brake wear pin indicator. This is twice now that I've had one on my aircraft. The first time; there were multiple phone calls; including one to the chief pilot at midnight for him to ok the aircraft. I have made many calls to maintenance control to be told 'there's a bulletin'; which I have never seen. After rechecking my publications at the training center; the chief pilot did finally call maintenance control and was told; naturally; 'we got a bulletin'. When the chief pilot asked to see it; they e-mailed a pdf file of a request; and a repeat request for engineering relief; with no FAA approval stamp and no signature. While I can appreciate that maintenance might like the relief; I'm still; after months; looking for a piece of paper or a change to the MEL that I can show to an FAA asi on my jumpseat that says it's legal for me to take the airplane. I have been told that if I wrote it up in the logbook; they would send a mechanic out to write 'entered in error' on the right side. The MEL says nothing about brake wear pins; therefore 8 installed; 8 required. I have no other information about how many can be missing from the same wheel; etc. How about we do it right and publish it in the MEL where it belongs.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: A Captain reports his efforts to get adequate reference data from Maintenance Control to support their deferral of missing brake wear indicator pins on a B737-700.

Narrative: While preflighting the aircraft; my First Officer noticed a broken brake wear pin indicator. This is twice now that I've had one on my aircraft. The first time; there were multiple phone calls; including one to the Chief Pilot at midnight for him to OK the aircraft. I have made many calls to Maintenance Control to be told 'there's a bulletin'; which I have never seen. After rechecking my publications at the Training Center; the Chief Pilot did finally call Maintenance Control and was told; naturally; 'We got a bulletin'. When the Chief Pilot asked to see it; they e-mailed a PDF file of a Request; and a repeat request for Engineering Relief; with no FAA approval stamp and no signature. While I can appreciate that Maintenance might like the relief; I'm still; after months; looking for a piece of paper or a change to the MEL that I can show to an FAA ASI on my jumpseat that says it's legal for me to take the airplane. I have been told that if I wrote it up in the Logbook; they would send a Mechanic out to write 'entered in error' on the right side. The MEL says nothing about brake wear pins; therefore 8 installed; 8 required. I have no other information about how many can be missing from the same wheel; etc. How about we do it right and publish it in the MEL where it belongs.

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.