"Bipartisan approach to Aviation Safety"? Why yes, both are completely ignorant and dangerous.

What I believe I'm starting to see is disobedience of the regulations simply out of despair.

Good point ixixly,
the government should have got Geoffrey Thomas to advise them on this one.

Seriously though if you break the whole thing down it's not Rocket science.

Q.Are people that don't meet Annex 1 chapter 4 requirements permitted by ICAO to certify for airworthiness? (Regardless of holding licence)
A.No
Q. Do Australia's maintenance regulations permit a person that isn't required to meet ICAO Annex 1 chapter 4 standards,(I.e. A specialist maintainer) to certify for airworthiness?
A.Yes

Q. Is Australia ICAO compliant?
A.No

Q.Does Europe allow that?
A.No - EASA requires certification to be carried out by a person qualified to part 66 ( except in limited circumstances)
Q. Is EASA ICAO compliant
A. Yes

Simple

The issues put simply part 2

The Part 145 MOS says that if you want to carry out "Specialist Maintenance" you can provided you have procedures in place to qualify and authorise your employees.
Q.can a non- authorised employee carry out specialist maintenance?
A.no

When CASA added non specialist tasks to the list of specialist maintenance regime it required all Maintenance Orgs to qualify and authorise their LAMEs for those tasks if they wanted them to be able to continue to perform and certify them - because as we all know if something is deemed to be special is is outside of the normal training for a LAME.

Q. Can a LAME carry out and certify for a task if their AMO has made a provision in their exposition ( approved by CASA) that that task is specialist maintenance, and the LAME does not hold an authorisation for that maintenance.
A.No

Now here's a funny one - I understand that one big airline, that shall remain nameless has included in its exposition that cabin furnishings in general and seat covers and cushions included ARE specialist. Thereby requiring their LAMES to meet the qualification requirements before they can certify. The really funny bit is that apparently they have deemed that the qualification required to be held before an authorisation is able to be issued is a Cert III in automotive and marine trimming technologies, which is about a 12 month full time course.

How many LAMEs at that airline have this? My guess would be about " donut" !

Q.Can a LAME at the said airline replace a soiled seat cover or cushion at a line check or transit without having the qualification and training?
A. No

Q. Is that hilarious?
A. Yes

Folks,
The sad truth of the matter is that "expert regulators" are very thin on the ground within CASA.

Interestingly, one of the larger branches of the ALAEA is within CASA, I wonder what they had to do with such an imperfect piece of regulation.

As with so much of the "reform program", the final output bears little relation to the original intent, and nowhere is this more true than with the "Maintenance Suite", which is absolutely nothing like EASA regulations, or the recommendations of Byron's expert panel, or the regulations from anywhere else, for that matter.

Tootle pip!!

So where does that leave cabin staff who work for this "big airline"? Seat covers get badly soiled on occasions and need to be changed during flights. Seat cover kits are provided for this reason. A re-think on this policy can't be too far away.

So where does that leave the Cabin Staff when they need to change a seat cover?
Well they could start by writing up in the aircraft technical log that they were required to fit a replacement item in flight. Seat covers and cushions are time life components that make up part of the aircrafts crashworthiness.
Many people seem to think that the inside of the cabin is inconsequential and unimportant.
Because a Crash isn't an everyday event it is easy to get complacent and consider it an area ripe to cut costs. When the moment arises in a dark smoke filled cabin a working set of emergency escape paths cover lights might just save your life. The burning seat cover that should have been replaced after the fire retardant was washed out of it is now burning your a...s. You try and escape out the over wing exit but the wrong set cushions have been fitted impeding your exit. Bugger!

Meanwhile in another part of the sky an aircrafts engine starts to burn, but there is no fire indication for precious seconds because the wombats that spray painted the aircraft didn't mask the engines and filled the guts up with paint, coating the fire wires and making them unserviceable. Then they same aircraft starts to depressurise because they also painted over the safety relief valves. (Yes this is specialist maintenance, and no they sa,y you don't need a LAME to take responsibility for an airworthy result).

Thing is about aircraft maintenance is that it's quite often accumulation of little "inconsequential" things that add up to cause a big thing.

Ps. Sorry about the typos above. Was going to correct them but an apology is quicker!!!

Terminalfrost

I agree.

Most of the big defects that I have found were discovered when I was inspecting something else.A specialist doesnt have the depth of understanding or in some cases authority to go beyond their specialist task

A few years ago I bought a book in the US for a travel read.It was on big business culture and one chapter covered A&Ps working in a large airline maintenance facility.The task was repairing pressure seals in the rear bulkhead on B737s. They continued to find cracks in the pressure bulkheads but were told not to report them as their job was to repair seals. When they did report the cracks their base lost the seal repair jobs to a contractor and they were laid off.

Wunwing

Wunwing,
That reminds me of the G.O.Ds in the UK, the operator I worked for had all but turnaround maintenance done by contractors (and most turnaround maintenance done by the Flight Engineer) and we would take an aircraft for an 800h check, with maybe 50 deferred defect, and typically collect the aeroplane with two or three times as many, the operator would only pay to fix something that would ground the aeroplane.

And, on one occasion, not even that, with an MEL of two V-Gs fitted, two required, the CP operated out of maintenance with just one. That was too much even for CAA, said CP got a "Very naughty boy, next time we will get seriously terse" letter.

It was only when CAA threatened to pull the AOC did things change, and of all possibilities, a mob from Qantas was brought in, and Oh Boy!! did they sort the maintenance problems in short order.

Tootle pip!!

Yep, and as I have posted before, THAT fluid dripping from the engine might be ignored by inexperienced ground staff, and THAT crack in the paint thought to be just that, rather than a crack in the structure.
LAME oversight on ALL inspection checks is now more important than ever.

Economies sought by management that result in a lesser level of safety just cannot be tolerated.
It's sad to see the regulator allowing this to happen.

[QUOTE]Economies sought by management that result in a lesser level of safety just cannot be tolerated.
It's sad to see the regulator allowing this to happen./QUOTE]


…and an A320 has just gone down in the French Alps...