2010-04 · NASA ASRS report 885609
MD11 Flight Crew discovers airborne that they are not in compliance with an MEL requirement to be dispatched with no fuel in the tail tank.
I watched the Captain and the First Officer complying with the AOM procedures for the fuel system in manual. Crew commented on not being able to turn the tail tank boost pump on - per AOM procedures. We noted that the tail tank boost pump CB was collared; thus this seemed to be in conflict with our AOM procedures. We then called maintenance back to ask about this issue. He said that the MEL procedure was complied with; yet we explained to him that the AOM procedure says we need to be able to turn the tail tank boost pump on. We then called Maintenance Control to try to work this out. They seemed as confused as we were. No solution was offered yet. They told us that we might want to confer with an Assistant Chief Pilot. There was no solution offered. Maintenance then came back on the flight deck and un-collared the circuit breaker and said the MEL procedure had been complied with. We were then able to operate the tail tank boost pump as per the AOM procedure. It was not until we were airborne that we discovered we had missed a note on the MEL stating 'maintenance will verify tail tank is empty.' We had fuel in the tail tank. We closely monitored fuel during the flight and landed uneventfully.
The collared CB had us scratching our heads. MX solution was to un-collar the tail boost pump to allow a proper testing of pump. I again asked if this was part of the MEL procedure. He confirmed it was. By now fuel slip and load plan arrives; we complete preflight and press on confident we had done our jobs as best we could; but ultimately missing the fact that the tail had been fueled until airborne. We operated the system in Manual and moved fuel from the tail to engine 2 as necessary to maintain 1500 lb balance between main tanks.
Source: NASA Aviation Safety Reporting System (public domain). Reports are voluntary submissions and are not verified by NASA.
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