CRJ-900 flight crew reported noise from degraded cabin door seal required diversion to a safe landing.
Synopsis
CRJ-900 flight crew reported noise from degraded cabin door seal required diversion to a safe landing.
Narrative
When climbing through about 6;000 ft I started noticing a hissing sound that seemed to get progressively worse. After chiming the Flight attendants at 10;000 ft I immediately got a call from the forward FA saying that the noise was coming from the main cabin door. All indications in the flight deck were normal. I told the flight attendant that we did not have any adverse indications and to let me know if it gets any worse. As we climbed through about 18;000 ft the sound changed from a high pitch hissing to a sudden lower pitch roaring sound. The sound was very noticeable and concerning to both of us in the flight deck. The forward FA immediately called me again and said she was very concerned about the main cabin door. I told her to stay seated and that we would consult the advise of maintenance. Because the noise was getting worse as we climbed; we requested a decent to 10;000 ft from ATC. We didn't get any EICAS messages but we looked up the cabin door warning message and it said to descent to 10;000 ft. At this point we continued on our flight plan route and I attempted to get in contact with dispatch via ARINC. The reception on the ARINC frequency was very spotty and I couldn't hear dispatch; so I tried ZZZ2 radio and was able to get a much better reception. Dispatch told us they would assess the overall operation and help come up with a plan. After we descended to 10;000 feet the noise got a lot quieter. I was comfortable flying at 10;000 ft and so were the flight attendants; so we continued on our flight plan route and waited for dispatch to get back to us. At first dispatch said they were looking at us going to ZZZ2 but shortly after they said ZZZ would be a better plan because it was on the way to ZZZ1 and they had a spare aircraft at ZZZ. I agreed that ZZZ looked like a good option to divert to. We also considered the possibility of continuing to ZZZ1 at 10;000 ft but the dispatchers initial fuel burn calculation had us landing at ZZZ1 with 2000 lbs and when I did a fuel calculation to ZZZ1 using our current fuel burn and ground speed at 10;000 ft it showed that we would have less than 1000 lbs. I told the dispatcher that we would like to stick with the plan of diverting to ZZZ and he agreed that was the best option. When we landed in ZZZ; maintenance met us at the aircraft and they confirmed that the seal on the top part of the main cabin door was degraded and needed to be replaced. We did a plane swap and continued the flight to ZZZ1. Cause: A degraded seal on the top of the main cabin door caused abnormal noises in the climb that were likely indications of a pressurization leak.
Second reporter narrative
Upon initial climb we noticed a loud hissing sound. We didn't think much of it initially. It slowly grew louder and changed tone to a loud wine. At that point the forward flight attendant called to inform us it was the main passenger door. Indications were green so we continued the climb. At about 18;000 feet MSL the noise changed tone a roar. At that point we all became very uncomfortable and felt unsafe continuing the flight as planned. So we worked with ZZZ to work out a diversion plan. As the FO I'm unsure if I missed any visual damage to the seal on pre-flight or if it was an inflight failure. I check the condition of the door on pre-flight but haven't been in the habit of specifically checking the rubber seal. I will definitely be doing that going forward. Cause: Damage to the door seal. Not present or caught on pre-flight.
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Source: NASA Aviation Safety Reporting System (public domain). Reports are voluntary submissions and are not verified by NASA.