Not that many years ago a colleague was called to head office to attend a disciplinary hearing in respect of a missing elevator closure panel that was spotted on a flight crew walk round.
He signed the last daily inspection the night before in the dark and failed to notice it was missing.
The panels location could be seen clearly from the ground as the green primer paint contrasted strongly with the aircrafts silver paint finish.
He listened to the charge against him then asked a simple question. Where is everybody else? He went on to point out that the aircraft had had several inspections conducted prior to his by pilots and engineers. Nobody had noticed this panel missing in a weeks flying.
The panel was found in a bucket on the tail dock in heavy maintenance.
A good question might be how many microswitches do you want given the large number of access doors and panels on a modern aircraft and how many duplicate inspections. The truth is you have to rely on human beings who are fallible.
Normally I make a point of not lowering the cowlings until I am ready to latch them.
On lowering them I latch them straight away and normally if possible have a second engineer confirm the latching.
However a leak check post a ground run on stand may well require the cowlings to be reopened.
As other posters have pointed out the pressure on line maintenance to reduce costs is immense with major airlines leading the charge. Anyone with an interest in this should get access to the information distributed by the Association of Licensed Aircraft Engineers. Many senior engineers (agewise) including myself are struggling to continue in the current climate and retirement can't come soon enough.
One thing I will guarantee is that the maintenance staff involved will be distraught and this will never be forgotten for as long as they work on aircraft.
Maybe flight crew should have access to a "prayer mat" to allow them to look under the cowling without getting their knees wet, though quite what the pax will make of the crew praying to the engine prior to flight is anybodies guess!!!!!!!!!
Last edited by ericferret; 31st May 2013 at 23:50.