Narrative:

On my day four of what was a three day trip for the rest of the crew we started the morning with a flight to ZZZ. The pairing had us scheduled for a 40 minute turn in ZZZ with an aircraft swap. Although this put us at our departure gate behind schedule I felt as though we did a good job of working professionally as a crew to perform our duties in a timely fashion. The first officer performed his preflight and we attended to our other duties and were able to depart only 10-15 minutes behind schedule. Things progressed normally from there. Sometime after reaching the flight levels during our climb one of our flight attendants called to tell us that the aircraft was abnormally loud in the cabin near the exit rows. The first officer and I both reconfirmed that the aircraft was pressurizing according to schedule and that no other gauges; synoptics; or parameters indicated anything abnormal. We advised the flight attendant that we could not see any reason for the additional noise but we would continue to monitor the situation from up front and asked the flight attendant to let us know if anything changed in the cabin. The flight continued without further complication. During my post flight after our arrival in kansas city the source of the additional noise near the exit row was found. An access panel was missing from the underside of the fuselage adjacent to the leading edge of the left wing. I called maintenance control and issued them a jcn. To my knowledge the question of why the event occurred as of this writing has not been determined. However; there appears to be two possibilities. The first is that the panel separated from the aircraft while in flight. The second possibility is that the first officer may have not seen that the panel was missing during his preflight of the aircraft. This would presumably mean that the panel had been removed while in ZZZ1 the previous night for maintenance and had not been put back on. The aircraft had flown with a different crew that morning from ZZZ1 to ZZZ. If the event occurred because the panel separated in flight then I am not sure what to suggest to prevent a future occurrence. If the event occurred because the aircraft left the gate without the panel attached then some things to prevent recurrence could include: -reminding employees from the top down that safety must remain our number one priority. -We must remember to check and double check the work that we have performed (maintenance; flight crew; etc.) -remind flight crews that whether it be a preflight or postflight we must remain vigilant during our walk around's and do our best to look at the entire aircraft both up close and from a distance.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: CRJ900 flight crew was informed during flight of an abnormally noisy aircraft cabin near the exit rows. No anomalies were observed from the cockpit. Upon arrival ground personnel discover a missing access panel on the fuselage near the leading edge of the left wing.

Narrative: On my day four of what was a three day trip for the rest of the crew we started the morning with a flight to ZZZ. The pairing had us scheduled for a 40 minute turn in ZZZ with an aircraft swap. Although this put us at our departure gate behind schedule I felt as though we did a good job of working professionally as a crew to perform our duties in a timely fashion. The first officer performed his preflight and we attended to our other duties and were able to depart only 10-15 minutes behind schedule. Things progressed normally from there. Sometime after reaching the flight levels during our climb one of our flight attendants called to tell us that the aircraft was abnormally loud in the cabin near the exit rows. The first officer and I both reconfirmed that the aircraft was pressurizing according to schedule and that no other gauges; synoptics; or parameters indicated anything abnormal. We advised the flight attendant that we could not see any reason for the additional noise but we would continue to monitor the situation from up front and asked the flight attendant to let us know if anything changed in the cabin. The flight continued without further complication. During my post flight after our arrival in Kansas City the source of the additional noise near the exit row was found. An access panel was missing from the underside of the fuselage adjacent to the leading edge of the left wing. I called maintenance control and issued them a JCN. To my knowledge the question of why the event occurred as of this writing has not been determined. However; there appears to be two possibilities. The first is that the panel separated from the aircraft while in flight. The second possibility is that the First Officer may have not seen that the panel was missing during his preflight of the aircraft. This would presumably mean that the panel had been removed while in ZZZ1 the previous night for maintenance and had not been put back on. The aircraft had flown with a different crew that morning from ZZZ1 to ZZZ. If the event occurred because the panel separated in flight then I am not sure what to suggest to prevent a future occurrence. If the event occurred because the aircraft left the gate without the panel attached then some things to prevent recurrence could include: -Reminding employees from the top down that safety must remain our number one priority. -We must remember to check and double check the work that we have performed (maintenance; flight crew; etc.) -Remind flight crews that whether it be a preflight or postflight we must remain vigilant during our walk around's and do our best to look at the entire aircraft both up close and from a distance.

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.