The facts are that during a maintenance visit to SIAEC a Qantas 747-400 had wiring stapled. Qantas have admitted this in an internal audit of the check.
Are they???
Originally Posted by Crikey.com
Home truths about those Qantas staples
Ben Sandilands writes:
Qantas knows that the illegal stapling of electrical cabling in a 747-400was done by one of its own employees and not in maintenance performed while the jet was being overhauled in Singapore last year.
What was a cause celebre for the Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association in its campaign against offshore contracting and for alarmed Qantas pilots last week is now their worst nightmare.
It was shoddy work by an Australian worker in a Qantas hangar where management failed to apply the high standards once taken for granted by the public.
Qantas is running an intensive investigation which may identify the employee responsible for the disgrace, as well as those who then used it knowingly or unknowingly in a campaign to discredit the use of offshore companies, in this case, the Singapore International Airlines Engineering Company (SIAC) which had been the subject of an earlier adverse audit by the airline.
A Qantas spokesperson confirmed the investigation and has defended David Cox, the executive general manager engineering, who sent a confusing signal over the responsibility for the stapling incident by telling Seven’s Today Tonight he would have words with SIAC over the incident.
The spokesman said Cox’s comment were made three days before they went to air, well after the inquiry was launched and the false premises of the union campaign were exposed. Since then the union has been in retreat, claiming that it was not casting aspersions on the training or capability of foreign maintenance workers nor the quality of their work.
SIAC was furious over the report. Cox’s response to that fury is detailed in this Note to Staff on July 20.
However the situation is bad for Qantas as well as the union, because in failing to detect improper repairs in at least one of its jets, it recognises inadequate exercise of its responsibility for the professionalism and capabilities of its in-house engineering and the record keeping supposed to catalogue the service history of this and every jet in its fleet.
But as far as its argument against sending more maintenance work abroad is concerned the engineering union has kicked an ‘own goal’ and lost the match.
If neither Qantas or the unions can be trusted to get it right, isn’t the offshore solution more attractive than ever?
Originally Posted by Bug-a-lugs
If its only happening to QF aircraft then maybe it is one of our own.And if it is,then he/she should be given the boot.
Hmmm
