2008-10 · NASA ASRS report 809550
A320 CAPTAIN IS UNABLE TO OBTAIN GROUND AIR AT GATE; THEREFORE HE STARTS THE APU AND CANCELS GROUND AIR REQUEST. CAPTAIN RETURNS TO AIRCRAFT TO FIND AIR CONNECTED AND APU OFF. CAPTAIN IS VERY DISPLEASED WITH GROUND CREW.
ARRIVED AT ACFT TO DO COCKPIT SET UP. INTERIOR OF ACFT WAS 90 DEGS F. CALLED OPS ON RADIO AND ASKED TO HAVE GND AIR HOOKED UP. 15 MINS LATER; GND AIR STILL NOT HOOKED UP SO I STARTED THE APU. I CALLED OPS AND ADVISED THEM I HAD STARTED THE APU AND THERE WAS NO LONGER ANY NEED FOR GND AIR TO BE HOOKED UP. AT THIS POINT; I COMPLETED MY COCKPIT SET-UP. I LEFT THE FLT DECK TO GO INTO THE TERMINAL TO PURCHASE FOOD. UPON ARR BACK AT THE ACFT; I NOTICED THE APU WAS NO LONGER ON THE GND AIR AND GND PWR HAD BEEN HOOKED UP AND WERE OPERATING. I ASKED THE FO IF HE HAD SHUT DOWN THE APU OR WAS ASKED TO DO SO. HE STATED HE WAS NOT ADVISED; ASKED OR AWARE THAT THE APU HAD BEEN SHUT DOWN. I CALLED STATION OPS AND ASKED IF THEY KNEW WHO HAD SHUT DOWN THE APU. I WAS ADVISED THAT SOMEONE FROM THE RAMP HAD SHUT IT DOWN. I TOLD STATION OPS TO PASS THE WORD THAT MANIPULATING COCKPIT CTLS IN DIRECT OPPOSITION TO THE CAPT'S REQUEST WAS UNACCEPTABLE. HAVING NON-FLT QUALIFIED INDIVIDUALS; OR FOR THAT MATTER ANY INDIVIDUAL BE THEY MAINT; FLT OR OTHERWISE MANIPULATING COCKPIT CTLS AFTER THE CAPT AND FO HAVE PERFORMED PREFLT COCKPIT SETUPS IS EXTREMELY DANGEROUS. A SECOND FULL AND THOROUGH COCKPIT SET UP WAS ACCOMPLISHED TO ENSURE NO OTHER SWITCHES OR CTLS HAD BEEN INTERFERED WITH OR MANIPULATED BY RAMP PERSONNEL.
More incidents for this aircraft family
Source: NASA Aviation Safety Reporting System (public domain). Reports are voluntary submissions and are not verified by NASA.
Loading the flight search…
Pick an aircraft model — Boeing 737, Airbus A320, A380, Boeing 787 Dreamliner and more — enter your origin airport, and FlightFinder shows every route that plane flies from there with live fares.
We support Boeing 737/747/757/767/777/787, the full Airbus A220/A319/A320/A321/A330/A340/A350/A380 family, Embraer E170/E175/E190/E195, Bombardier CRJ and Dash 8, and the ATR 42/72 turboprops.
Search and schedules are free. Pro ($4.99/month, $39/year, or $99 one-time lifetime) unlocks the enriched flight card — on-time stats, CO₂ per passenger, amenities, live gate & weather — plus My Trips with push alerts.
Live schedules come from Amadeus, AeroDataBox and Travelpayouts. Observed routes (which aircraft actually flew a given city pair) are crowdsourced from adsb.lol ADS-B data under the Open Database License.