An A320 Flight Attendant reported finding; during preflight; numerous passenger door emergency operation cylinders with low pressure showing on the door pressure gauges. Door emergency pressure gauge checks have been removed from their cabin safety checklists.
Synopsis
An A320 Flight Attendant reported finding; during preflight; numerous passenger door emergency operation cylinders with low pressure showing on the door pressure gauges. Door emergency pressure gauge checks have been removed from their cabin safety checklists.
Narrative
This time all 4 doors had low pressure. This incident is problematic because I have already sent 3 other reports about door pressure gauges being low. While it is no longer on flight attendant's checklist; I do it on habit. However; since I have encountered many doors with this problem and have written many reports about door pressure gauges below acceptable pressure I will continue to check until further intervention by Maintenance is taken and all doors are being properly verified. Unfortunately after speaking with a Mechanic today; I was told that the company has changed the length of service on these aircrafts (from 48 hours to 70 hours) and that these doors often enough; leak pressure. However; since the company may be banking on probabilities here and Mechanics are aware of this issue; I will continue to check every door on these aircraft until policies are changed. While it is company policy to extend service time on these aircrafts (per Mechanic); it is my responsibility to make sure that myself; my passengers and crew are safe whenever I fly Airbus aircraft. Although these policies may make sense to the Chief Maintenance person; it only tells me that this department is using us as probabilities whenever we fly these aircrafts with extended service time. Because of my assumption here and until it is proven otherwise; I will continue to inspect these doors; until such time I feel that company policies are not being used as probabilities.Lastly; I have communicated with my carrier numerous times on this issue and now the problem is becoming problematic; that I found all 4 doors with low pressure gauge. I will forward an email to the Chief Maintenance and to our CEO on this issue with hopes that a further investigation is taken and a reasonable and SAFE solution is found on this issue.
NASA callback
Reporter stated a company Engineer informed him they were going to take a look at their maintenance records to determine the cause of why; so many of the emergency assist bottles had low pressure readings.Reporter stated he was told the removal of the emergency assist bottle pressure gauge readings from the Cabin Safety Check Lists; was due to Flight Attendants not having access to a local temperature source that was necessary to compare the bottle pressure readings with a calibration placard that was in Centigrade; rather than Fahrenheit degrees. Additionally the reporter stated the pressure gauges do not have a green band to indicate acceptable pressures; only numbers that can be read and compared to the calibration placard.He does not know if the length of service time that was extended between maintenance checks of the door pressure gauges was reduced back to the shorter hours.
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Source: NASA Aviation Safety Reporting System (public domain). Reports are voluntary submissions and are not verified by NASA.