An A319 was mistakenly released for flight and got airborne with a lavatory door missing because a communications lapse between Maintenance; the flight crew and Dispatch indicated the work complete when it remained a deferred item.
Synopsis
An A319 was mistakenly released for flight and got airborne with a lavatory door missing because a communications lapse between Maintenance; the flight crew and Dispatch indicated the work complete when it remained a deferred item.
Narrative
[We] flew with deferral for cabinet door under sink in forward lavatory inoperative. Next leg same aircraft; Maintenance advised would fix door; watched mechanic install door; went to cockpit. Shortly; cabin door was shut; purser advised cabin ready and I asked about lavatory door. He said something like looks like they are not going to fix it. We did a release verification and came back showing same maintenance release that we had at our initial departure. As we were originally going to fly the leg with the deferral; did not think much about it; figuring they had encountered a problem and elected to just let the aircraft depart on the old maintenance release. After push and thinking about it more; I called Maintenance just to make sure that it was okay to leave. He said that we were good to go they way we are. On climb out we received a message to return to gate. After calling Dispatch we were told to continue. I learned that the cabinet door was not on the aircraft at all and realized that this was an issue. I am now aware that just because I asked for and received a release verification message; that in this case; it would still not guarantee that the aircraft was properly released. I suppose that I need to work closer with maintenance on these issues and seek an explanation as to why there is a change in planned maintenance activity.
Second reporter narrative
Aircraft arrived at gate with a deferral assigned. The crew sent message to refuse aircraft until deferral was cleared and forward lavatory was usable again. I was the lead in the area. Mechanic assigned to the gate worked on item with the intent of replacing the door with one that was robbed from another aircraft. After a short time of trying to make the new door fit; mechanic decided to re-work the latch because it would not close properly. He brought the new door into the office where we replaced the latch with the original one. When the job was completed; he took the door back to the gate to install on aircraft. When he got to the gate the aircraft had already left. When I checked to find out if the aircraft was still on the field; it was already airborne. I checked to see if the aircraft had been released and found that it had not. The aircraft left with no door installed in the forward lavatory; the lavatory was still deferred and it was not released.
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Source: NASA Aviation Safety Reporting System (public domain). Reports are voluntary submissions and are not verified by NASA.