A DHC-8 Flight Crew detailed a particularly deficient de-icing effort by contract ground personnel.
Synopsis
A DHC-8 Flight Crew detailed a particularly deficient de-icing effort by contract ground personnel.
Narrative
Weather was freezing drizzle which turned into light snow by the end of the event. Boarded the flight on time and proceeded with de-icing procedure. De-ice at IAD occurs at the gate and; to my understanding; is conducted by the contract ramp crew supervisors. Just prior to commencing the de-ice procedure we requested ground power; we were told by a ramp agent they did not have ground power. We thus agreed to do the de-icing process with the APU running. During the de-ice process the de-ice crew snuffed out the APU. After this the process stopped so the de-icer could come talk to the crew via the interphone on the aircraft. It was then discovered they did have access to ground power from another carrier. They plugged it in successfully and the procedure continued. The de-icing process restarted and the de-icing crew continually failed to remove the residual ice from the leading edge of the wings and the propeller spinner despite frequent notices from the flight crew. After 100 minutes; including a de-ice truck failing to spray type 4 fluid; the de-ice crew finally followed the repeated crew instructions and sprayed directly on the leading edge of the wings and the prop spinners. The flight continued with out further incident. During the event the flight crew contacted dispatch to discover these de-ice crews had similar problems the week prior.These events occurred because there was no direct communication with the de-ice truck. It took numerous attempts to communicate which part of the aircraft needed to be sprayed directly. Communication was made to the truck via a contract ramp agent who sat in a push back tug and used the interphone connection to the aircraft. When a message needed to be passed to the truck; the ramp agent needed to physically leave the tug; walk to the truck and relay the message. This ramp agent had no knowledge of aircraft parts or areas; spoke little English; and had no knowledge of the aircraft. It took numerous attempts to communicate which part of the aircraft needed to be sprayed. He was unfamiliar with the terms leading edge and prop spinner. It took a very long time to describe to him what they were and where they were located on the aircraft. This hampered efforts to tell the De-ice crew exactly what part of the aircraft needed to be sprayed. The contract crew was unfamiliar with our company's de-ice procedures. When told we needed ground power they claimed they didn't have one. But when the APU was extinguished during de-ice procedures; they suddenly had access to several. During the de-ice procedure the de-ice crew only sprayed from the rear of the aircraft. This missed the residual ice on the leading edges and propeller spinners; mostly due to the fact that the sprayer could not visually see this part of the aircraft. Ground crew appeared to have no understanding of the clean aircraft concept. Flight crew did everything possible to assure the residual snow was removed. The solution to the problem is adequate training of personnel responsible for safety of flight procedures. I do not believe any of the ground or de-ice crew personnel should be reprimanded in any way. The reason this event occurred was due purely to lack of training.
Second reporter narrative
During the boarding process at IAD we communicated face to face with the ground crew that we needed type 1 & 4 deicing before departure. I could see the ground guy struggling to get into the safety harness before entering the boom of the deice truck; took about 15 min; he appeared to be unfamiliar. The First Officer...informed me to not be so technical; so I changed my verbiage and told them 'the white stuff needs to be removed from the front of the wings and the center of the prop area.' I felt condescending but it worked. I'm sorry but I really don't think our team in IAD knows what a leading edge or a prop spinner is; they repeatedly sprayed the wings without removing the ice from the leading edges; props and spinner. We informed them the white stuff was finally off; (they eventually saw what we saw - ice the diameter of a softball on the spinner and ice the diameter of golf balls between each of the boot segments). But; by this time it was; perhaps; 40 minutes since the tail was sprayed with Type One so we told them to redo the tail with Type One and Type Four. Well the whole process of deicing took almost two hours. I don't think I have ever taken off with such a lack of confidence. Deplorable! In the end we wasted lots of deice fluid; and the crew; aircraft; and passengers almost got stuck in IAD.
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Source: NASA Aviation Safety Reporting System (public domain). Reports are voluntary submissions and are not verified by NASA.