Steve Creedy, Aviation writer | July 18, 2007
THE discovery of crudely stapled wires on a Qantas jumbo jet has sparked calls by the airline's engineers for an end to its offshore maintenance program and the grounding of all planes recently worked on overseas.
The problem was uncovered last week in the emergency floor-lighting system of a Qantas Boeing 747-400 that underwent a heavy maintenance check at Singapore Airlines Engineering Company (SIAEC) last year.
The plane was also the subject of a damning Qantas audit, as revealed in The Australian in March, that raised doubts about the standard of maintenance carried out on the airline's planes overseas.
The audit found problems in areas such as flight control cables and floor panels and with inspection documentation, but apparently missed the stapled wiring in two locations on the jet.
Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association federal secretary Steve Purvinas said the latest discovery came when engineers doing a routine check found some of the emergency lighting was no longer working.
"They found the problem was a couple staples had been put through that were were no longer doing their job," Mr Purvinas said. "They thought, 'What the hell is going on here?', and they went down the track and found some more. Eventually (they) had to check the whole plane."
Mr Purvinas said the union had hundreds of photographs of the staples and estimated they had been used at least 30 times on the aircraft.
He said any problem with wiring was a worry because of the potential fire hazard and all wiring fixes done overseas should be reviewed before aircraft were allowed to continue flying. "Certainly, any Qantas aircraft that has been up in Asia should have, particularly, that emergency lighting wiring checked."
Qantas head of engineering David Cox said the use of staples was unacceptable. Qantas staff had picked up on the practice as it was happening in October and had told Singapore to eliminate it.
"But clearly there were two instances on the aeroplane that were not corrected," he said.
"Now we've discovered those, they have been corrected. And we will certainly be revisiting the issue with Singapore vigorously, as we would with any quality pick-up we had with those providers."
Mr Cox urged Qantas workers who found safety problems on its aircraft to report them immediately. He said SIAEC was a first-rate provider and that all organisations, in Australia or not, had issues from time to time.
"The key thing is we're remorseless in dealing with those issues and we'll continue to be remorseless," he said.
Civil Aviation Safety Authority spokesman Peter Gibson said there were no plans to ground Qantas aircraft and that CASA was satisfied with maintenance standards in Singapore.
He said CASA had conducted an SIAEC audit in March.
Thanks Darth ....
