As you know working on and around airplane in hangar or flight line can present safety hazards. I am
not talking about safety hazard caused by vehicles and equipment around aircraft in the ramp or in the hangar, but the
powered or active (electric power on, hydraulic, pneumatic...etc) aircraft
itself. If my memory is good the AMM included some warnings in old aircraft (such 737-200 and 727), but there were no procedures to deactivate the aircraft systems. For example as ex AMT especially inside the hangar, we have to put a note on cockpit, open circuit breakers, communicate with other employees, or most
importantly disconnect a connector for example of hydraulic pumps as
extra precaution if we are working on hydraulic system or flight controls.
It seems Boeing have system or process to deactivate aircraft systems in order to prevent/reduce the safety risks on or around active or powered airplane according to the link below. There is Boeing system/process called
LOTO (lockout, tagout, and tryout) in order to comply with U.S Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) regulations. Boeing link:
https://www.boeing.com/commercial/aerom ... 2014q4.pdf
a) Does your airline/aircraft operator has a similar safety policy/process (LOTO) when employees are working on/around powered airplane?
b) Does your airline/aircraft operator has his own
(internal) safety policy/process (similar to LOTO), or it is
related to government regulations that airline/aircraft operator must comply with?
As an ex AMT we had some relatively serious injuries in the workplace (not in our crew) and if my memory is good:
-One employee get sucked into JT8D engine (737-200). As as you might know this engine is fitted with IGV (inlet guide vanes). So the employee was lucky (no death). The result will be totally different if it was high bypass engine (big fan) and no IGV as in the current engines.
-One employee get strucked by spoiler on the head (the guy had surgery on neck/vertebrate).
-One employee was hit and thrown by accidentally inflated door escape slide inside the airplane.
The article mentioned examples of safety hazards. As AMTs we know at a certain degree (some know more and some know less) the safety hazards on/around aircraft.
c)
Based in your experience and opinion what are the most serious and important safety hazards while working on/around the aircraft (besides the known hazards such flight control, landing gear (test), running engine?
Please give some examples of accidents/incidents if they happened?
d) In your opinion what are the
devices/items that aircraft manufacturers (Boeing, Airbus....etc) can add to aircraft in order to reduce the hazards for employees working on/around aircraft?
e) Does Airbus (in the assembly line) has system/process to deactivate aircraft systems in order to reduce safety hazards on/around airplane? Does Airbus AMM include
procedures to deactivate aircraft systems?
Feedback appreciated.