Engineers please help.

[Rigger1]

Dear Fellow Aircraft Engineer,

I am writing a paper on 'Violations carried out by aircraft engineers' as part of doing an MSC in Human Factors, and wondered if you would please help me.

I am looking for engineers to tell me about when they deveated from the rules / procedures and think about why they did it. Most of us do violate, or cut the odd corner to try and get the aircraft out on time, and we do it for what we believe are the right reasons.

I am looking for examples from both civilian and military engineering, and I would like to know:

What you did and more importantly why you did it? Think about the normal Human Factors type things, time pressure, lack of manpower etc but can you also think deeper about why you did it from a personal point of view. If you have been threatened with ‘the door’, if the aircraft wasn’t ready, do you honestly think that would happen, have you been directly threatened with the sack if you don’t get it done. Do you think the management / supervisors want you to cut corners, have you been encouraged to, were you thanked for doing it, what motivates you to do this even though you know deep down that it is against the rules etc.


What i don't want to know:

Names, Datees, Times, Companies, Locations etc. This is for an academic paper not an industry witch hunt.


I appreciate that this seems like a lot to ask, and if you could only spend 5 minutes jotting something down I will still be grateful.

If you could please PM me with anything that may help.


Thanks.