lost thread
Seems to mee the point of the original has been lost. As a concerned Experienced LAE i am going to bring in back into line. I can confirm that several airlines i have carried out maintenance for on, both customer and own fleet have caused me to review my position at these airlines. The first one gave me cause to live because my conscience couldn't take it the second one asked me to leave as i had highlighted real safety cultural issues. I went down every avenue to address my concerns and due to the plain ignorance and lack of understanding of the role of an LAE and the of holding a CRS they shoo-shooed me and told me to wind my neck in.
The final nail or event which caused me to leave the first airline luckily enough didnt turn into the potential nightmare that it could have, but as the flight crew that day will tell you if it wasn't for me standing up and saying "i don't care what the procedures say" a major incident was averted.
This was down to flight crew making wrong decisions about systems they have limited knowledge on. And this is the issue Crews are not qualified to make decisions about aircraft servicability on thier own.
Yes arguments could be made that Maintrol were consulted. Well As seems to be the case more maintrol's are being brought into the realms of the sub part M (Airline) side and not under the part 145 (maintenance) side. This smells of commercial riding roughshot over safety and having dealt with a lot of airline maintrols ( one who even decided the aircraft with a major hydraulic leak should be given a CRS as the leak was such that it could just about make the sector with the current leak rate) most of them are there to get the aircraft home rather than get the aircraft serviceable.
I can give you lots more personal examples of issues which have given me cause for concern. Some may say have you followed the SMS/ Error reporting route? well let me tell you no one is more qualified to understand the aspects of engineering and these Error reporting processes. They are paid lip service to both by the airlines and the NAA's. They are processes that just are there to give the public the perception that "we take safety seriously".
You take the LAE away from the safety equation then watch things crumble. The LAE is the last line of defence he is the one that has hopefully been trained to the highest levels for the previous 7 years and then jump through hoops before he can sign to say that that multi-million pound machine carrying hundreds of passengers is fit to fly.