Tech log misunderstandings
 

This is a question posed to me as part of an ongoing research project - I'm working with a university english department asking some interesting questions about standardisation (or not!) of aviation English.


I'm sure that there have been plenty of occasions where written details about aircraft defects or work carried out have been misunderstood between aircrew and ground engineers.

Can anybody give me any good examples I can go off and think about? Also, can anybody offer any useful opinions about what environments (country, aircraft class, military.v.civil, operation type...) these misunderstandings tend to occur most, or least?

G

The best example I can think of but may be slightly off topic would be flight crew not stating their phase of flight when a failure or abnormality occured, often it can be critical information to properly diagnose or troubleshoot the problem.

If abbreviations are used they should be specific as defined by the company or aircraft manufacturers.

I will keep this in mind for you if any specific examples come to me.

Civil commercial aviation.

Not specifically, Ghengis but I can give an example that demonstrates a certain mindset.

UK line maintenance organisation, mid-90s: 767 had just arrived from the US. The captain had written up a suspected defect:

"Passenger (ex-RAF ground engineer) sitting at rear right of aircraft reports that panels on the top of the starboard wing move up an down during the flight".

Coming from a small aircraft background pilots would sometimes put 'Blah Blah system U/S' giving us no assistance whatsoever in troubleshooting.

Favourite was '70% chance of passenger pissing on seat number 6' . Our reply was '100% chance your cleaning it'

Another pet hate is a pilot not reporting the fault was fixed .If you never hear about it again you can assume it was fixed . But you cant assume so you need to chase them :ugh:

B747 Problem
 

When I did my B747 course way back in 1971 we were told about a defect with an american airline. The B747 could have a cargo deck galley, accessed by a personnel and a cart lift. Defect the pilots wrote up was about the elevator. A lot of time was spent trying to find a defect in the elevators.
The defect was about the lift to the lower deck galley that was described as an elevator in the write up. Later on a directive came out to only describe the lift to the lower deck galley as a lift, and not an elevator.

A fairly (very in some cases) common practice in the Flight Training environment is the use of the abbreviation " ", i.e. nothing, the direction from senior management being that nothing is to be written in the Deferred Defects section of the Tech Logs, especially on a weekend, in case that grounds the aircraft and that you must always speak to maintenance first.

That is a double edged sword, the negative being that records of minor faults are at best inadequate, at worst non-existent, the positive being that a relationship develops between engineers and pilots (who learn that both sides are human ;) ) and the engineer gets a detailed, first line account of the problem from the person identifying it, not a meaningless jumble of words, rapidly scrawled by instructors between lessons.

It also helps to break down language differences, as I found working overseas.

Some of the best lessons I ever learned as a pilot were gained working with maintenance crews on minor defects.

:)

Question
 

What does mean "NIL" .

I mean we all have our english skills, but some write ups are really strange. I saw guys, abbreviating the word "AND" into ND. On Airbus ND is Navigation Display. We should look for the future for failure codes , given by the Aircraft. open for any inputs :hmm:

What does mean: FIO (For Info Only) should I work or not ? Is a write up in the techlog autimaticaly a workorder for us ?

just my 2 cents

H3

4 engine piston aircraft - defect - no 4 engine missing - action - no 4 eng found on wing!

Twenty years or so back...
Four-engined piston freighter returns to base at quarter to dawn, tired F/E writes up a defect in tech log of 300 rpm mag drop and aways to his bed.
Early morning wake-up for local residents as engineering try to find out which engine, which magneto and which (of 144) plug is to blame.

We've all been there, one way or another. :)

true write up
 

When working in USAF in California on B52's this was a good one.

Number 7?? engine EGT reads 20c high on take off OK rest of flight duration on flight 24 hours 30 minutes (cromedome).
Try and find that one to fix it!!!!!!!!!!

:ugh: Keep them up boys

My pet hate is pilots that prefix their defect write up with the words "for info only"

Its either a defect or its not.....

If it's in the book, it's a defect, no matter what they write in front of it.

Not Strictly a Tech.log issue, but have had a No. 1 cabin crew member from a Customer Airline my previous employer supported, wrote in the Cabin Defects Log,

Cabin Log Book Missing From Aircraft. :D and was verbally supported by the Captain indicating that one needed to be issued to the Aircraft.

We also used to get alot of, "Oh! and by the way", or "Just for your info", as the flight crew were stepping onto the bus to go home....

If they were that concerned why not stick it in the book.

To which alot of replies of "Ok, I'll bite check the So and So box", or "I'll Look into the TSM".

That reminds me of a genuine write up many years ago.

DEFECT: Captain's Mars Bar fell off tray and was lost among rudder pedals.

ACTION: Mars Bar retrieved, Bite check satis! :ok:


RIP KF.

Also, the one about the 'miising' engine. It took me years to work that out as I have never been involved with piston engines. :O

is like:

DEFECT: Evidence of leak on left MLG.

ACTION: Evidence removed. :E

As well as the usual misunderstandings around acronyms,I've seen terrible handwriting (worse than my GP!) & some weird abbreviations just the "tick" symbol too "O C G I F",Ops check good in flight.
During the Falklands tif, RAF Harriers had Sidewinders fitted. I had a written defect "Winder FU£$Ked" I spent a fruitless 20 minutes playing with the stopwatch until the penny dropped (actually thats prolly me being thick!).
I'd concur with the phase of flight not recorded & perm any one from upto 4 different systems,engines - specific system not recorded.

What I have found most often causes problems in understanding what is meant by log entries is when the person who made the entry has no or little knowledge of English syntax. They are then using grammatical rules from their own language and are effectively writing in their own language but using English words.

"The engine left..." doesn't quite mean the same as "the left engine..." even though that might be what was meant.

Not entirely
 

Although it might not be the same with other airlines but at EK a Tech Log entry can be prefixed with LI, LP or LL.
LI= info only, no action (necessarily) required
LP= PIREP
LL= Line maintenance entry

When cabin defects such as "brewer inop" is made on an aircraft with 3 or 4 galleys that each has 3 or 4 brewer machines. Wich one is inop?!?!? Just to later find out that it did work, it was just over filling the jug.

"Lav xx not flushing on ground" .... try flushing it after toilet and water servicing, not during.

"Galley xx sink drain blocked" .... Try to not pour milk and orange juice down the same drain at the same time!!!

A single cabin entry containing
"Seat XXX video not working, seat YYY tray table inop and curtain at door XX stained" ... what happened to making three entries for three unrelated faults?

Sure I will have more fresh examples, multi national crew makes for interesting reading sometimes. :ugh:

I hate it when the sandwich chuckers get their left and right mixed up. They are looking aft most of the time.:ugh:

'If it's in the book it's a defect'

Not if you're a captain with a leading Brussels based airline! Numerous times I've seen defects such as flap faults, airbrake uncontrollable, etc in the tech log, prefixed with 'FOR INFO'. The crew then fly the aircraft back the following day. Illegal and dangerous, not sure I'd be happy with my kids flying on that leading Brussels based airline if that's their attitude to safety.

As far as misunderstandings go, I always use a continental style '7' with a line through it, seen 7s confused with 1s quite a lot; cue a defuel when that happens!