A CRJ50 EICAS alerted PAX DOOR LATCH but the crew erroneously completed the PAX DOOR HANDLE OUT checklist which required that they divert to the nearest airport. Maintenance MEL'ed the door warning system as faulty.
Synopsis
A CRJ50 EICAS alerted PAX DOOR LATCH but the crew erroneously completed the PAX DOOR HANDLE OUT checklist which required that they divert to the nearest airport. Maintenance MEL'ed the door warning system as faulty.
Narrative
When PAX DOOR LATCH message came on; I said: 'You have the radios; I'll do the checklist' or similar words. I got the book out and looked up PAX DOOR LATCH abnormal. I'm not sure what distracted me; but something did; right about then. When I looked back at the Checklist I focused on the 'Phase III or Phase IV' question and didn't realize I had switched pages. I completed the PAX DOOR HANDLE OUT checklist and it called for a divert so we did. I discovered my mistake while talking to Maintenance after landing. This did happen at night and after an eventful day; but I didn't feel tired. We had gotten to our previous departure airport on schedule; we had over three hours on the ground scheduled; and I was planning to eat there; as were the other crewmembers. Just as I left the gate; Crew Scheduling called me and told me we were to change airplanes and take a different flight to an unscheduled destination. Further investigation showed the plane to have been in maintenance for some time; and the 30 or so passengers had been waiting for something like six hours because other flights were full. I told our gate agent I would need to get back to the airplane and get my stuff out and she said 'I won't be able to let you out if you aren't the scheduled crew anymore.' To cut a long story short; it took until about two hours to get the crew and our stuff together on the other airplane and start boarding. I think the First Officer was primed to expect a divert because he said something like 'yep; I've done that before'; and I think that experience made him less likely to question me. I didn't really feel like the scheduling issues had affected me. I felt fine; but I suspect part of the reason was caffeine from the four Diet Cokes or so I had consumed. I am not sure why I fell into the wrong checklist. And I wish I knew what to do to prevent this from happening again. My only suggestion at present is that part of the procedure should be to show the procedure he/she is about to execute to the other pilot before starting it.
Second reporter narrative
At the time I was the flying pilot. The Captain grabbed the QRH and began PAX DOOR LATCH caution message. I took the radios from the Captain. The first two steps were completed with EICAS when our error occurred. My Captain jumped to PAX DOOR OUT HNDL MSG (Phase IV) located on the page next to PAX DR LATCH. I remember her trying to figure out what ship number we were in. That falls under PAX DR OUT HNDL (Phase III) located on the next page. During the entire time the Captain was doing this I did not notice the jump in checklist pages. It should have startled me. Having done both PAX DOOR LATCH and PAX DOOR OUT HNDL in my career here at this airline it did not alarm me. Why the two blended together in my mind I do not know. Step six is land at the nearest suitable airport. I began to think where that may be. At no time reading; did I realize; we were on the wrong checklist nor did I look at the name of the checklist on top. The Flight Attendant did pull the outer handle stow knob and of course the wrong message stayed illuminated. We contacted Dispatch and Maintenance explaining our problem of PAX DOOR LATCH. We had complied with the QRH (we really had not) and we needed to land (we really didn't) since we still had the message. This was the last chance I had to put two and two together and realize that PAX DOOR LATCH was what we had and not that serious. I began to think of time and distance and how we would get down since we were very close. We descended somewhat steeply and landed safely. Arriving at the gate the passengers deplaned and I went outside to do post flight walk around. During my time outside the Captain spoke with Maintenance and the decision was made to defer the door indicating system. It is at this point when I returned to the flight deck and the Captain informed me that we had done the wrong checklist. The trigger being Maintenance wanting to defer the indicating system when we believed we had a problem with the handle. After a brief delay we reboarded the passengers and continued to our destination. Well I am somewhat upset to say that I had the chance to look over and see the wrong checklist being done. I had time to do so and believe I handled only one frequency change while the QRH was being done. My thought is maybe having both pilots look at the QRH verifying they have the right one before starting. I just took it at face value we were acting correctly. I would hate to think what would happen had we started reading the wrong checklist on a much more serious item. I have learned my lesson.
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Source: NASA Aviation Safety Reporting System (public domain). Reports are voluntary submissions and are not verified by NASA.