Originally Posted by
hoistop
This design was an accident waiting to happen. However, once the problem came to light, it took way too long thru all boards, committees, etc. to be sorted out, and COVID measures did not help with that. Turkish Airlines DC-10 near Paris (decades ago) comes to mind: -known design problem, SB was out, only timing was such that before the airplane was modified, it crashed, killing all aboard. I am also working in Quality stuff for years, now SMS etc. but sometimes I feel that thru all the benefits of orderly processess etc. a simple common sense has evaporated. Instead of having people aware, what they are doing, we give them procedures, loads of warnings, cautions, memos... everything, except proper education. (and money that goes with it).
When I did maintenance licence 30 years ago, I was paid (near inimum wage) to sit in the classroom to listen to the best and most experienced guys in the company for more than a year for basic training theory only. Now, future AMTs just click a,b,c answers on a bunch of exams, study at home on their free time, (if they study at all, some just try to get sample questions on the web to memorize) and collect practical experience on the go, often without any serious coaching. Then we have frozen water in AOA sensors and/or in NLG steering electronics, pushed there with high pressure cleaning, 40 times too much biocide in fuel tank, leaking oil filters as they were squeezed obviously incorrectly into the housing and other hard to believe events. It seems to me that modern airplanes take considerable wrongdoing due to excellent design, but this is obviously changing now-designs not so brilliant anymore. Hope Airbus will not follow the suit.
While I agree with your general reasoning, we should realize the amount of aircraft (-flavors), the amount of systems on an aircraft, the complexity of these systems (Ehhhh, software), the speed with which things get updated as well the hugely increased amount of regulations, no longer fits a teaching schedule you describe. Once the experience guy "knows" everything needed to teach, that knowledge has become old. So, yeah, there is no way any longer, each airline does have these knowledgeable people (often multiple) and the nowadays teaching needs to come from a central teaching location. Which is what has become the norm. Unfortunately.
Let alone, be able to make distinctions between "regular" and "important" stuff, everything tends to get the same importance classification, which in itself is a dangerous aspect.
Add to that the amount "new" technicians need to learn has become that much, these learners no longer can absorb all they are considered to get known, old-school style. So, curriculum selections need to be made, as well drip-feeding this knowledge in a consumable way.
Compare that with countries, where a significant amount of educational time is spent on imprinting "religion" items. When children spent 50% of their available learning time on religion items, they will stay (significantly) behind their mates in other world-parts, who spent all their learning time on subjects that matter for economic prosperity. There are reasons why religion based authoritarian countries are economically very weak (and often survive on Gas/Oil sales), this is one of them.