Dec 08 on eng change it is reported that the HM facility had used only one washer in each of the 8 locations instead of two
Very frustrating to read such problems, and I am sure that some will be wondering why such mistakes are being made and how this can happen to our airline. Many MRO's operating outside of Australia have a very tight LAME workforce. And when I say tight, I mean 1 LAME on type sometimes supervising for maybe 3 or more aircraft in the hangar. And on the odd occasion there may be no-one at all, but on these days no such work is carried out on the relevant category of course.
I suppose there is the occasional audit to ensure things are operating smoothly, and I suppose that ample warning is given to prepare for such audits.
This is significantly different to the way that we operated in Sydney Heavy, where there were plenty of LAME's and AME's on the aircraft floor to work and supervise maintenance. We knew from our own experience of many years that QF engineering was a world's best practice facility. However with change of management we were told otherwise. I guess the meaning of "world's best practice" to them has alot of cost issues assoc with it.
Just who is working on our aircraft overseas, and their level of experience is anybody's guess. And while management and CA$A will always defend these issues when raised, the fact remains that our staff are all very well aware of the true issues.