Line Maintenance Communication

[DaHai]

I would appreciate some assistance from flight crew, retired crew or Line Maintenence people. I am managing a team of Chinese instructors who are teaching English in the aviation industry. Communication between flight crew and Chinese Line Maintenance staff is often difficult due to their oral English language skills. We have a Line Maintenance Communication course which we have taught and covers aircraft arrival and departure communication with or without a tow. I would like to enhance the course by adding communication between the ground/flight deck or vice versa for some "unusual or out of the normal" situations, i.e. tailpipe fire, a vehicle approaching the aircraft during push back which I have covered, but I would like additional problems. Perhaps some possible computer messsages that might require the flight crew to ask the Line Maintenance if it is a "Go/No Go" item, or need to discuss with a particular trade related engineer.
What I would appreciate your asssistance with, is:
What are some possible scenarios
What would the likely communication be (what would be said by each party). I realise that there is no "exact" sentence used, but an idea of the conversation would be helpfull.
The attendees on the course may not be licensed, so the scenarios need to be those that an unlicensed engineer could handle.
Best Regards
Dahai

[spannersatcx]

Perhaps some possible computer messsages that might require the flight crew to ask the Line Maintenance if it is a "Go/No Go" item, or need to discuss with a particular trade related engineer.

Look up the message in the front of the MEL, is it dispatchable - yes or no, if yes does it require maintenance action - yes/no - if yes come back to stand, if no see you next time.

[whatbolt]

In the type of situation you discribe with the staff you say you have I think it inadvisable that the flight crew ask the ground crew if its go or no go. Its bad enough understanding the DDM sometimes being a licenced guy speaking the same language and in any case if the DDM has been changed since you read it last you could be giving wrong advise. Its down to the crew, they have the DDM on board.

[DaHai]

Thanks spannersatcx and whatbolt. What I was trying to accomplish is to provide the ground engineer or the person on the headset, with some English phrases or some confidence in using English when communicating with the flight crew.
In our course, we cover technical terms in English, then standard arrival and departure with and without a tug. It is the unusual I am trying to address.
I was attempting to come up with role-play in which a problem is posed to the ground, ie, "we have a message VHF L Antenna Fail". I wanted to provide the Ground Engineer with something to tell the flight crew about what he was going to do, ie, "I am going to check the MEL" or "I will go and get an avionics engineer." We have situations where the ground can not explain to the flight crew in English, what is happening or will happen. In some instances, a problem may be the English accent from the crew. This I can not solve, just experience by the ground will help alleviate it.
Many problems I believe, occur due to lack of English vocabulary and expressions. The more situatuations I can provide, will help both flight crew and Line Maintenance.

[Engineer_aus]

I had a problem the other day where the igniter's failed to light up the engine. I said fuel off, continue to motor, fuel is coming out of the engine. 2nd go she lit up after switching igniter's.

Other problems I have had basically are back to gate faults, where I have had to say to the crew shut the engines down and I am towing you back to the bay. Other times for the MEL book I ask them to look it up and see if it is a O or M req. Pretty easy when you think about it.

[OCTANE100]

DaHai,

You need to start socializing with these guys and basically encourage the exclusive use of English rather than Mandarin in both social situations and as much as possible during working hours.
Have had a very similar situation with Chinese speaking guys and you need to enforce the use of english as much as possible. Generally speaking the mainland Chinese guys who have studied english (in mainland China) have a very good written vocab, but have difficulty getting the words out.....

It is difficult, I've been in China long enough to know better and my language skills are still crap!!

Best of luck.

[spannersatcx]

"we have a message VHF L Antenna Fail". I wanted to provide the Ground Engineer with something to tell the flight crew about what he was going to do, ie, "I am going to check the MEL"

3 installed 2 required, no maintenace procedure, see you next time!

Very unlikely that on the headset that you will have an MEL to hand, the crew do, so the only thing to do is get them to check. The rest is really down to experience, which is hard to teach.

If I had the above, I would get them to cycle the cb, try again, if still no good, their call, they can go with it.

If like you say communication is difficult, either have an engineer on the other end of a radio who can come to the a/c, or leave it up to the crew.

[DaHai]

Thank you spannersatcx, octane100, and engineer_100 for your comments and suggestions and comments. They have been most helpfull. Best regards

[mono]

IMHO you need a Maintrol dept manned with fluent english speaking engineers for the duration of your flying program. That way the ground engineers answer to any technical problem he/she doesn't understand is "call maintrol"

The contact details for your or your customers' maintrol department should be known to the crews.

Apart from the obvious fire, fuel spill, seized rotor, etc problems. There are too many variables to compile a list of responses. A mis-understanding could be VERY expensive. To avoid this there should be only one response "call maintrol"

[winglit]

At a lot of airports, most of the people on the headsets during the push-backs are ground handlers, not engineers. They would have basic aircraft handling knowledge and are not qualified to offer technical advice to pilots.

Those that are qualified and on headsets might be asked with a technical question if there was a failure during start-up. But the engineer in question would only be able to offer advice on experience alone. Anyone who offers a solution without consulting maintenance publications exposes themself for liability. Don't forget that the CVR records what is said on the intercom.

Your students should be briefed to advise the pilot to consult either the ramp line office or maintrol in the event of any failures, so that qualified staff with the appropriate publications can advise. It's not fair to put the onus on the guy on the headset just becuse he the nearest and easiest to contact.

[Piper19]

I'll give you some real life situations I encountered. You can make a conversation around them.
- flames during engine start
- fuel leaking from drain mast at engine
- gear pins still installed
- hatch on engine opened during start. I went to close it, so had to advise them to never touch the throttle. (I'm an engineer, ground crew would never go under a turning engine).
- beacon light not on during pushback (broken)
- tow bar shear pin broken, had to assess nose wheel damage on the spot.
- no EGT indication - return to stand
- entry door handle not flush with the outside skin, ask pilots to recycle the door
- cargo door fault light, pilot asks to recycle door