QF Safety Issues Raised by ALAEA

[concernaviat]

Article in today's Sydney Morning Herald discusses safety issues raised by ALAEA with Qantas/CASA, and of course Qantas management's glossing over of the concerns.

Civil Aviation Safety Authority | Civil Aviation Safety Authority and cover up | Qantas | Airline safety

I am amazed that Qantas management will go on the record in saying "there was absolutely no safety issue at any time" like a broken record.

How can they say there was NO safety issue at ANY time when the engines had been mounted incorrectly. If there was no safety issue and no risk, why didn't they just leave it? It's like boldly claiming that "there are no risks" - anybody who claims that doesn't know the first thing about risk management.

Similarly, statements like "This was picked up by our own quality reporting system" mean nothing. If QF have such a great quality management system and safety management system, then why were these deficiencies not picked-up when the work was done in Hong Kong a year earlier.

And of course Qantas cannot help but put the knife in: Qantas operations chief Lyell Strambi said yesterday the issues were being distorted by the Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association as part of an "ill-defined industrial agenda".

[xXmuffin0manXx]

Ha@!

I just came on to pprune to see if this was being discussed

Although, I haven't read it yet

[Tangan]

I wonder if QF management have considered the possibility that the "ill-defined industrial agenda" is a genuine concern for safety or are they so blinkered that they view any union input as an agenda for personal gain by the members.

[the rim]

i agree with high lighting real dangers in off shore maintenance but remember our guys are there checking on the quality of this maint[i know not all is checked]just remember this before we run off to the media

[ALAEA Fed Sec]

Thought I would have a bit of a look here. It's hard to get the full story out there when the press just want a few one liners so I consider it appropriate to elaborate here for the industry experts to understand.

Our union have been raising countless issues with CASA in the past 18 months only to find that regardless of the evidence, they side with Qantas and allow them to do as they please in this country. Usually they don't even respond to our concerns and I understand that the atsb are having the same problem.

Although there are dozens of issues, I will raise two here and please shoot me down if our concerns are not valid.

Issue 1. Qantas 767 Bne-Cns lands in June 2008 after experiencing severe turbulence. A mandatory turbulence check is required with 25 items. 10 of them are deferred until the next a-check and the EA issued by the airline states as a reason – insufficient time and equipment are available to carry out the full AMM 05-51-04 inspections.

The deferred checks included visual inspections of engine mounts, empennage safety checks for structural security etc... Now I am no award winning aviation expert but I do think that my 24 years as an aircraft engineer tell me that a mandatory severe turbulence check cannot be deferred. To defer it for several weeks until the next a-check for the above reason makes it far worse.

So the ALAEA decides to write to CASA and what do you know; no response. It’s just one of 17 issues we have outstanding with them.

Issue 2. 747-400 leaves a HM check in Oct 08. 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. In Jan 09 on another change it is also noticed that the engine mounts only have one washer. Additionally a number of these washers are upside down. Note that the washers are flat on one side and curved on the other to fit the curved underside of the bolt head.

Other two engines are checked and they are also found installed incorrectly. For those not technically minded, using half the washers only could lead to incorrect torque of the mounts. If one works free, load increases on the others which could lead to..... well you can work that out.

The LAMEs raise the appropriate reports and tick the SDR reportable box to ensure that this major defect is formally submitted to CASA. Qantas Quality Assurance decides to change the LAME reports and not report them under the mandatory SDR program. You can follow the link on this requirement -

http://www.casa.gov.au/download/CAAPs/Airworth/51_1.pdf

During discussions with the airline, they say that they phoned CASA and told them about it immediately. So bloody what. We are angry that Qantas refuse to submit the reports formally. If submitted formally, CASA would be required to publish in their SDR monthly report and also be obliged to act to ensure other aircraft flying around don’t have this same problem.

This is a very real safety issue. 4 engines fitted incorrectly on one aircraft. Visuals on the next Qf aircraft coming from the same facility showed that they were also being installed incorrectly. No action from CASA who should have immediately advised Boeing so other airlines using this supplier could be issued the necessary AD or instruction to correct the problem.

What the hell do we have to do to get CASA to do their god damn job.

[ampclamp]

some questions and other carriers

Do other carriers have the same leaway with casa or are they just the same for all?

take the issue to the opposition and the minister responsible.
They must respond.
The opposition must surely put it to the govt minister?

write the PM , ask him if he would like a similar chk deferred on his BBJ's for company convenience.

I dont want to see qantas' reputation damaged by public squabbling but these issues must be dealt with.
We have enough troubles in house without importing them.

Just goes to show you can get an EA issued for just about anything.

finally a question or 2 .
Fed Sec, if I as a LAME read an EA in hold for something like the above and decide I wont sign out a RTS where do I stand given we know how qantas feels and that CASA are either impotent,completely under staffed, dont care , or stand shoulder to shoulder with qantas on this ??


Will I be bent over and reamed for trying to exercise my judgement of safety in either refusing to sign off initially on the EA once issued or refusing to sign a RTS upon reading the hold items during turn around?
How does the QE PPM deal with the above issues/ questions?

Bit of a mine field for the guys and girls trying to do the job.

[ALAEA Fed Sec]

Fed Sec, if I as a LAME read an EA in hold for something like the above and decide I wont sign out a RTS where do I stand given we know how qantas feels and that CASA are either impotent,completely under staffed, dont care , or stand shoulder to shoulder with qantas on this ??


Will I be bent over and reamed for trying to exercise my judgement of safety in either refusing to sign off initially on the EA once issued or refusing to sign a RTS upon reading the hold items during turn around?

The problem that we face in the industry is that a combination of different laws and powers (or lack of) that particular bodies hold, conspire against us when we want to do things safely.

CASA have approved Qantas to issue EA's and change change procedures as they like. When you are given an EA that says for example "we are waiving the dual inspection requirement" or "we will defer a mandatory safety check" or "we give you a one off approval to certify for a task that you are not trained on", you can legally do what is instructed no matter how unsafe you think the practice is.

Qantas are now issuing these authorities like footy cards and we have written to CASA for them to intervene. They always, and I mean every single time we have written to them, sided with the airline and allowed pratices that we say are unsafe, illegal and dangerous.

Supporting the orders for staff to carry out unsafe practices that in many cases are illegal, are workplace laws that can subject LAMEs to fines if they do not do as they are ordered by their bosses who in many cases are not LAMEs. When things go wrong (such as a towing accident at Avalon) the LAMEs are still held accountable as the overall person in charge of particular maintenance procedures.

The mix of laws, unqualified managers demanding that LAMEs take responsiblity for functions that they say are unsafe and CASA who couldn't give a rats ar$e what Qantas do will lead to accidents.

We will be getting these issues out there in the public and hopefully rectified before it is too late.

[Jethro Gibbs]

all this has stuff has gone on for years nothing has or will change.
And Re.Will I be bent over and reamed for trying to exercise my judgement of course you will.

[ALAEA Fed Sec]

8 years ago I was told that you couldn't change the ALAEA. I think we are seen in a complete different light today than we were back then. No matter how big a mountain may be, someone can climb it.

[Ngineer]

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.

[Dark Knight]

Have components ever been incorrectly installed during maintenance within Australia?

Of course they have.

Have maintenance procedures been incorrectly followed within Australia?

Of course they have.

Has incorrect maintenance supervision happened within Australia?

Of course it has.

Many, many overseas airlines fly numerous sectors exceeding the number of sectors flown by Australian Airlines daily using the same type of aircraft we use yet the oceans & deserts are not littered with aluminum and carbon fibre.

The most significant damage inflicted by all the outrageous statements emanating from the Qantas engineers and their union is upon Qantas and ultimately themselves when the SLF decides Qantas is unsafe to travel with.

Maybe Qantas engineers and their union need to have some serious introspection.

DK

Nor do I think for one moment Qantas management is without blame.

[Ngineer]

The most significant damage inflicted by all the outrageous statements emanating from the Qantas engineers and their union is upon Qantas and ultimately themselves

Dark Knight, you have missed the whole point.

The safety of the aircraft we work on and the travelling public is the agenda behind such issues, not a media driven company beat-up. Such outrageous statements that you suggest are simple facts of what is presently occuring, and very serious issues.

Shame on you for turning the blame back onto engineers for voicing their concerns.

I am sure that if an incident were to occur causing harm to persons or aircraft due to this, the Australian public would not share the same improvident and lax attitude.

[Clipped]

DK

Spoken like a true New-Age QF Manager. Congratulations on pointing out the in house problems.

Then problems are twofold. Fix the maintenance errors within and certainly offshore.

Regardless of where the problems have taken place, both QF and CASA have failed to act.

[ampclamp]

DK

Like I said DK we have enough problems ourselves without importing them.

To shoot the messenger is a bit rich DK.If they'd accept they have some issues then fed sec would not need to go public.He is more than aware that damaging the brand helps no one but what damage is done everytime we have an incident?
God help us if they ever lose a hull / life.

Deferral of the chks as stated above by fed sec are really beyond the scope what I would call acceptable.The reasons (time and equipment) are pathetic.At most a one off flt to main base where said time and equipment is available.
How the hell would the "professional" engineer with his/ her CAR authority know what damage was sustained unseen and therefore what was an acceptable time limit on any detailed inspection or repairs if any required? Bad luck if something fell off in the meantime.

Imagine the headline, "qantas 767 xyz fails after inspection was deferred because it wasnt convenient".
Whilst unlikely it can happen, thats why inspections are mandated.
I daresay THAT would be far more damaging than anything fed sec could say.

[blueloo]

If true (and should an incident occur), the lawsuits they (CASA as an organisation and the individuals involved) would be exposing themselves to is mind boggling.

[1746]

The fundamental question remains: Where is the aviation safety regulator?

[fordran]

From Australia's premier aviation writer -

11 . Union better back its big safety claims against Qantas


Ben Sandilands writes:



Did Qantas allow a Boeing 767 which had experienced severe turbulence before
landing at Cairns last June continue its journey without completing all the
mandatory inspections required before a return to
service is permitted?

And did Qantas subsequently keep that jet in service for several weeks
before completing those checks?

If the answer to the first or both questions is "yes", then the airline and
the safety regulator CASA ought to be in serious trouble.

But if the answer to both is "no", then Steve Purvinas, the federal
secretary of the Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association who made
these allegations
<Tracking
b921-952554fac056&rid=0bf1072f-a9df-419f-9cf4-e85524197fdc>, is in the hot
seat.

The ALAEA under Purvinas has referred dozens of claims of unsafe practices
at Qantas to CASA in the past 18 months that have been claimed to have gone
without substantive answers.

The ALAEA is the union that broke Qantas management last year by refusing
overtime and eventually winning a substantial pay rise campaign. That
campaign took part within an extended period of obvious neglect of
engineering and maintenance by the Geoff Dixon management team.

Clearly the new management lead by Alan Joyce as Qantas group CEO doesn't
sit well with the ALAEA either, but whatever their differences, it is the
safety claims that need to be thrashed out, and especially the claims that
CASA which is itself under new management continues to fail in its duty to
scrutinise Qantas.

In a note posted on Pprune.org the Professional Pilots Rumour network, Steve
Purvinas, the federal secretary of Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers
Association, says of the Cairns incident:

"The deferred checks included visual inspections of engine mounts, empennage
safety checks for structural security etc... Now I am no award winning
aviation expert but I do think that my 24 years as an aircraft engineer tell
me that a mandatory severe turbulence check cannot be deferred. To defer it
for several weeks until the next a-check for the above reason makes it far
worse."

However Qantas operations chief Lyell Strambi responded this morning that
the inspection requirements are determined by the assessed levels of
turbulence experienced by the aircraft, that this justified its continued
service after the appropriate checks for that level were made and that this
was supported by follow-up inspections.

Strambi has also rebutted the detail of another claim Purvinas has made
elsewhere over engine mounts incorrectly installed overseas and has
suggested a union payback is underway after Qantas sought orders in the
Industrial Commission last week to stymie a threat of illegal action in
another matter.

However beyond the ALAEA versus Qantas and CASA matters is the overriding
issue of safety standards enforcement in Australia. Australia failed
critical elements of an ICAO audit of safety oversight earlier this year,
and has wide ranging remedial action to complete by the end of the year or
risk being consigned to the same failed state status when it comes to
aviation as Indonesia and Yemen.

Last year CASA did a special audit of Qantas which discovered that CASA had
been clueless for years as to what was amiss in the carrier, and both the
airline and the regulator brushed off as trivial a failure to complete
gravely serious mandatory repairs on the pressure bulkheads of aging Boeing
737-400s for five years.

Under these circumstances air travellers have every reason to treat with
caution airline and regulator platitudes about their exemplary safety
standards whether made in reaction to union or public concerns.

[aussie027]

Issue 1. Qantas 767 Bne-Cns lands in June 2008 after experiencing severe turbulence. A mandatory turbulence check is required with 25 items. 10 of them are deferred until the next a-check and the EA issued by the airline states as a reason – insufficient time and equipment are available to carry out the full AMM 05-51-04 inspections.

The deferred checks included visual inspections of engine mounts, empennage safety checks for structural security etc... Now I am no award winning aviation expert but I do think that my 24 years as an aircraft engineer tell me that a mandatory severe turbulence check cannot be deferred. To defer it for several weeks until the next a-check for the above reason makes it far worse.

To me the underlined sentence basically says we cannot be bothered doing this now as it is too costly ,inconvenient and time consuming.

It certainly would have been bloody "costly and inconvenient" if the aircraft was in fact damaged and had an inflight structual failure on the next flight, or the one after that wouldnt it??

If the next 2 or 3 assigned crews reading that write up in the maintenance log had refused to fly the plane until the full inspection was done it would have been gotten done asap right?????
The time and equipment would have been found or they park the jet if no tech crew will fly it.

No airline is perfect and of course, everyone makes mistakes at some point too but the regulator needs to do their job and regulate and oversee the operators no matter who they are or how big or small they are.

Operator self regulation when tens of millions of dollars are at stake to be made or saved by cutting corners will never work in the real world .
Ultimately peoples lives are at stake, and 1 serious fatal accident/disaster will do exponentially far more damage and cost more than any penny pinching effort to save a buck here and there.
Most pilots and engineers know this and yet airline risk management experts appear not too and are happy to gamble on the odds always being in their favour.

However beyond the ALAEA versus Qantas and CASA matters is the overriding issue of safety standards enforcement in Australia. Australia failed critical elements of an ICAO audit of safety oversight earlier this year,
and has wide ranging remedial action to complete by the end of the year or
risk being consigned to the same failed state status when it comes to
aviation as Indonesia and Yemen.

Under these circumstances air travellers have every reason to treat with
caution airline and regulator platitudes about their exemplary safety
standards whether made in reaction to union or public concerns.

Very true, lets see how CASA shapes up in the next 6 months and if they pass the next audit.

[Engineer_aus]

Have you got a copy of the tech log coupon, EA etc? The LAME shouldn't have signed the RTS on the 767.

The B744 is downright bizarre. Surely the guys have been doing engine changes for a long period of time, unless they got monkeys off the street.

Has there been a REPCON report submitted?

I do recall a discussion amongst my base maint crew that its only a matter of time before a Qantas plane hits the dirt.

[ALAEA Fed Sec]

I could spend all day every day filling out Repcon reports with the stuff thrown on my desk.


When we make comments publicly we generally always have copies of tech log coupons, internal reports (500's, 2000's and cross), EA's, relevant manual references and often photos. If it hits the press, we don't want to be found wanting of evidence or credibility.

The engine issue we have raised as a Repcon and it is currently in the hands of the ATSB. Despite what may have been said on this site, the issue is not about the facility that mounted the engines incorrectly. In my earlier post I have not even mentioned if it was within Australia or O'seas. This is about Qantas not reporting major defects to CASA as is their requirement according to the CARs. All SDR reportable defects are publically available on CASAs website and this major issue does not appear. We are unaware of any directive for other operators who have used the facility to check their engine mounts.

The 767 return to service was signed by a LAME but he was given the documentation (an EA) that authorised him to do so. If he refused I would suggest there would have been a reasonable chance that Qantas would have disciplined him for refusing to do his job (many similar instances recently). The airline which is now being run by accountants and mathematicians have taken away a LAMEs discretion to do something he considers unsafe. On a side note I found this comment from Qantas interesting -

However Qantas operations chief Lyell Strambi responded this morning that
the inspection requirements are determined by the assessed levels of
turbulence experienced by the aircraft, that this justified its continued
service after the appropriate checks for that level were made and that this
was supported by follow-up inspections.

There is no "half" severe turbulence check. You either require one or you don't. However, even if you were going to check how severe the measurement of turbulence was, that check was one of the ones deferred anyway.

See 767 mm 05-51-04-222-010. The measurement is used to determine whether an additional airplane alignment is required.