The Disturbing Truth About How Airplanes Are Maintained Today

[Mark in CA]

OK, so Vanity Fair has published this article on what appears to be a disturbing trend in airline maintenance, stating "In the last decade, most of the big U.S. airlines have shifted major maintenance work to places like El Salvador, Mexico, and China, where few mechanics are F.A.A. certified and inspections have no teeth."

It cites several examples of airplane incidents traced back to shoddy work done abroad. Several of my friends and relatives have upped their dosage of tranquilizers.

Can anyone here provide some context, perspective, rebuttal, etc. to calm the flying public's nerves about this?

The Disturbing Truth About How Airplanes Are Maintained Today | Vanity Fair (http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/11/airplane-maintenance-disturbing-truth)

(Moderators, please relocate if this is not the appropriate forum for this.)

[Filler Dent]

Its the same in Europe. All the time passengers only want to pay £29 for a trip to Spain or £139 to the USA the airlines are going to cut costs.

Maintenance is seen as an unnecessary cost by management. Most passengers and Joe Public don't even stop to consider that the plane waiting at the gate has had any maintenance at all. The assumption is that no expense has been spared on making sure the airplane is in tip top condition.

The reality is that more and more heavy maintenance is being carried out in far flung destinations, in shorter and shorter times as, with less and less oversight by airlines and regulators.

The engineering licence here in the UK has been watered down to nothing more than a multi choice exam thanks to European harmonization. Some people I've met with full licences seem totally clueless, even on the basic fundamentals.

As the aircraft systems have become more integrated with better fault reporting, it's now seen that back office staff, often full of post grads, monitor the aircraft for faults and raise tasks for the folks who wear overalls to fix. Often these tasks are completely unachievable since the person who has asked for the work to be carried out has no concept of what is required.

In the meantime, the airlines are pushing for the scrapping of the engineering maintenance licence and move to a system of company approvals to solve the shortage of engineers. Can anyone see a problem with this?

[ericferret]

Nothing much has changed in the the last 30 years. I remember taking the CAA to task over a North Sea helicopter operator in the early 80's that was giving full company approvals to mechanics who had failed their licence exam and therefore had demonstrated that they didn't meet the standard.

The pressure to do away with the licence has always been there and the bigger the airline the more they want it rid of it. All those expensive licensed engineers, what a waste of money!!!!!

[Capot]

One problem with replacing licensed engineers with company-approved unlicensed mechanics issuing CRS's, should such a ridiculous thing ever happen, is that when a can needs to be carried, the next person up the maintenance department heirarchy might well be surprised to find himself or herself carrying it.

And for that reason, if no other, it's an unlikely prospect.

[Rigga]

Of course the thing vanity fair has missed is the amount of support the aircraft has while it is away, in some foreign land, being 'fixed'.

1. Its not being fixed. It's being maintained to a Scheduled Maintenance check, plus some other jobs that are convenient while it is there. Just as you would with your car. (as you would also take your car to a garage that does a decent job but cheaper than others)

2. it is not abandoned to some foreigner Joe, as the article implies, to do what they like and however they like to do it. There are airline technical reps out there with it, watching the work as it happens and ensuring that standards are right for the airline (we all say we have the same standards but we all have different requirements!)

So as always when it comes to maintenance the papers say half the story and the airlines stay quiet - but mainly because they done want the public to know that there are these little people, who are not pilots, trolley dollies or baggage handlers, working on aeroplanes.

[YOUNGBUCK]

Cabot,
What is worrying is that this is happening in UK MRO facilities and in EU countries more frequently due to the interpretation of EASA rulings. This has been covered in ALAE latest edition of Tech Log.
Whilst not at the level of office / support staff actually spannering, I hope the authorities clamp down soon.

[BCAR Section L]

Capot there is no passing on of responsibility. The person issuing the release to service is responsible for the work covered by that release...............FULL STOP

Most management do not give the slightest thought to what could go wrong or the consequences being more interested in budgets. There are consequences to cutting budgets in all walks of life.

Licensed engineers are more expensive than unlicensed engineers due to their training and experience. However should we ever move to a cheaper situation where there is no longer any licence (saving cost of that training and experience), the only thing that changes in terms of responsibility is that a lower paid unlicensed person will be held responsible.

The article is reality even if it does mix issues somewhat. A really good example of the consequences of outsourcing (budget cutting) is the following real life event;

MRO management applying pressure to engineers not to document significant cracks as the repair was not part of the contract and the airline didn't want them fixed. The MRO didn't want to lose favour with the airline. Hats off to the engineers who promptly documented the cracks. The consequences of their actions resulted in them going to court because the MRO wasn't happy. So much for safety being paramount.

Sending airline staff is often about as useful as a trap door in a canoe as they are often part of the problem. The brief is simple, make sure the aircraft leaves maintenance on time with no additional costs.

In addition there is the issue of occurrence reporting. Do you seriously believe that there is an open reporting culture in some of the countries where outsourcing is growing?

Therefore I really fail to understand the logic of posters trying to imply everything is fine. In many cases it isn't. I am also not against outsourcing if done properly. I agree we shouldn't be scaremongering but we should be prepared to tell the truth.

If it is fine where you are be extremely happy but don't damage the chances of somebody elsewhere improving their lot. Ultimately we are only as safe as the weakest link.

The ultimate fact though is that all too often cost is paramount and safety comes at best, second.

[greatwhitehunter]

All too often the aircraft spend days in the hangar after they return from their the maintenance inputs at the MRO having major defects and errors rectified.
I also agree with the remarks about the licencing system. After a lifetime of maintaining aircraft and doing a job I love I am actually glad to be retiring in the very near future.
Not to put too fine a point on it the bottom line chasers are putting our crews and passengers at risk.

[LandASAP]

I have learned Aircraft Mechanic for 3 1/2 years education and now it's nothing worth anymore.

Basically anybody can do this job after passing a multiple choice test and some month of on the job training and he/she has the same qualification as i have.

In my company we have girls from the ticket counter straight ahead into maintenance and they are now licenced as iam but have no clou what to do at all. Same with guys which have learned baker or gardener or what ever. It's a shame.

[Rigga]

The trouble with "the Truth" is that there are so many versions of it!
There is nothing wrong with outsourcing, if its done properly - but like all expensive choices, it's down to how much you want to pay and how well you want the job done. Never the less, you can't paint all airlines, or MROs, with the same Vanity Fair brush. But some can justify more of that paint than most others.
As for the "Just Culture" statements; Well I think we were all 'there' at some time in our careers and some countries (let alone companies) are far more advanced in their attitudes than others. Think yourself lucky that you can get to choose what is right...sadly, not everybody can!
Finally, "Bravo" to those in your story who decided their airworthiness morals were better than their boss's!

[winglit]

In some instances you can get a better job from an MRO overseas.

I repped an A320 C check in Abu Dhabi. There was a very distinct rank or cast system. The management were predominately Europeans, the crew chiefs were Middle Eastern or East Asian, the licensed supervisors were Indian or Malaysian and the unskilled workforce were mainly Philippinos. And the Arabs swanned around the place in their white dresses looking important.

During an undercarriage inspection, the supervisor demanded a tech wash with MEK. The poor Philippinos were in that U/C bay with nothing more than a hankie wrapped around their faces, spraying this stuff with paint spray guns!

It was a lovely clean, shiny U/C bay, and as a result many defects were found and rectified.

Elf & safety would never allow that practice of spraying MEK anywhere in Europe. But it's still the best solvent for cleaning up layers of ancient LPS and all the other crud that gets in there.

[wanabee777]

Are you referring to this stuff:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butanone

https://www.fishersci.com/shop/products/methyl-ethyl-ketone-technical-fisher-chemical-3/p-216201

Yuck!!!

[Rusty60]

Sounds like practices haven't changed. I'm retired now, but my experiences in 3rd party MRO's were pretty much the same. Some poor (usually Philippino) bugger just gets told what to do, totally unaware of the consequences.

The first thing to go out the window in MRO's is the standard of inspections. An amazing amount of inspections are done in the first few days of heavy maintenance. Why don't airlines explain that to the media?