How safe are third party MRO's
 

I just wached a film about the shortcuts that some independent MRO's are accused of doing in the USA as well as airlines outsourcing heavy maintenance to the cheapest bidder, it's very interesting and somewhat shocking althought it's like placed i have worked for before.

www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/flying-cheaper/

Been there. The mindset in an MRO is that they are a business and will make money any way they can-- can get away with. In house work takes a bit longer sometimes because quality and reliability are a little more important. asian and south/central american MRO's put out junk. There is less oversight overseas for the obvious reasons.

In house work is performed by 100% liscenced technitions, MRO's require a small percentage to be liscenced 80% of the work is done by great walmart candidates who do it because it is just another job, not a profession, then inspected by a liscenced Technition.

Grounded 27..

What a load of diaherra you have written. If you are professional, check what you type before you post. If you are a licensed engineer , that is scary!

No inhouse maintenance facility needs 100% certifiers. NRAs set the ratio of technicians to mechanics that a company must employ. A technician must sign the work off. Mechanics do not sign off the CRS.

A lot of unlicensed mechanics are also a thousand times more competent carrying out tasks that newbie college technicians..:ok:

No inhouse facility employs 100% LAEs (unless they are a one kite operation!)

I work for a third party MRO. All the Techs are professional.

One company i worked for 5 years ago felt very suspect. The management knew i worked on A320/21 in Dublin so they put me in charge of the cabin(even though i am not a B1) looking after 5 foreign nationals, only 2 could speak English. Our task was to remove the lavs, galleys, remove floors and inspect and repair the floor beams and seat tracks etc. After lav A was removed i asked them to remove the floors from the fwd galley/ lav area, i was down the back doing the same job then i heard this cracking sound from the front, one of the guys was using a crow bar trying to raise the floor panel under the lav area, they didn't know it is screwed from underneath. the result was floor panel destroyed, 1 seat track damaged beyond repair. As the film shows if you can't speak English you can't read English so they coundn't follow MMA, SRM's etc. But what do you expect when the company lays off highly skilled home grown workers and hires cowboys for £5 an hour.:mad:

Alber I think he's from the US of A, which is where there seem to be problems at the m,oment.

I have spent some time at an Asian MRO, and they do not turn out junk, in fact quite the opposite, very highly motivated very clever people.

HEY RAT, Faa rules are what I speak of, airlines here are 100% AMT. Chop shops get away with soybean farm help.


Spanner, Not all asian mro's. Most are getting better. But better often is equal to cost, so they seek another 3rd rate shop when the econemy rises in the region they were doing business in.

A reputable asian MRO offered a decade ago to pay half the gas for the ACMI MD-11 operator I was working for to keep the C--checks flowing. They had structures built to allow for 3 times the manpower on skin jobs. I did admire this and the work was good. Poor asian slugs with their wrists shot out from 18 hrs on a 6x is the cost we do not pay.

So Grounded, Only A&Ps can do any work on US Line maintenance, regardless if they are signing off the work or not? Of course I wasn't refering to CFR14 regs (because I don't work under them). Out of interest, is it a requirement under FAR 121? Of course third party MROs are there to make money, its up to the FAA to regulate them and dump the chaff from the wheat. Trouble is no reporting system is confidential enough to flush out cowboy practice IMHO.

Your first post looked like it was written with two bottles of Jack Daniels BTW. So many typo's!:yuk:

Alber
 

Yes sir, airlines are 100% USDA prime AMT. May be a result of market saturation. If an airline held a repair station liscence they would need a "buy back" system of inspectors to employ non AMT's to perform hanger work. We have inspectors only for eo/ea and job cards as required in the HGR, Many AMT's hold RII certs on several type aircraft on the line.

At my company we have a A/B and C scale of pay, A being well experience stand alone line guys, B being new hires with little help needed to advance, C being employees with a cert but no experience, they go through a manditory training program exposing them to hanger/sheetmetal/avionics and shop work before they can have the "trainee" tag lifted off them. This is not common but a great chance for a non experienced AMT to get experience and on a track to great pay. I am topped out, started at the A scale and found avionics and line MX as my meal ticket and passion.

I have been a blue water to avionics mechanic/ flight mechanic/MX rep/ maintenance controller and MGT staff at several MRO's and airlines in the states. The closed door meetings at the MRO's made me disrespect the MRO business here, I blew it off as "hey I am just doing my job" for a few years until the discontent made my BP rise to an unhealthy level.

As for the requirement, if an airline has a repair station liscence they could technically hire non AMT's as said above, there is also a "repairman" certificate that an airline may still be able to get for a non AMT but it is unheard of these days.

The MRO business is crap here, hell I had a liscenced kid working for me who would not give up his B scale (not my current employer) for a tickeded A scale because he would loose his B scale seinority that gave him preferential bidding for days off and vacation slots. These kids have no pride and I am not an old man to say this.

Wherever those aircraft are sent for maintenance, the regulations are clear..."OPERATOR/OWNER is responsible for the continuing airworthiness of the aircraft they operate. Its up to the operator/owner to ensure that the aircraft remains fit for flight, not the MRO. An MRO on the other hand is responsible for the work they perform but not the continuing airworthiness of the aircraft.

Ok G man
 

True but a load of !!!!!. The owner operator wants the aircraft to go through a c-check with as least cost possible and the MRO wants the opposite. The liability is left for the lawers to sort out.

Third Party MRO's
 

Third party MRO's meet the same criteria as do an airline owned 145 company.
True, the third party MRO does seek to make a profit but doesn't an airline try to do the same?
Having worked in both I can assure you that the pressures and compensating features exist in both.
In many many cases the mechanics, LAE's and tech have worked in both types of organisation.
It is for the operator to make the choice where his aircraft go but we are in a small industry and once lost, a reputation is very hard to regain.:)

I'm with 32 on this ^. The imperatives on airline and 3rd party MRO's are exactly the same, to get a good safe job done at minimum cost/downtime. The authorities audit each to the same standards and the engineers are equally prone to lost license/prosecution if they are negligent or in violation.

Considering some of the hefty fines the FAA has been levying on US airlines and providers who have failed in their duties, maybe critics of the outsourced providers should look a bit nearer home first.

DODO
 

This is a load of crap. first the imperatives may be the same but reality is much different. At an airline you have 100% skilled labor who have allot to loose and pride in their craft, they do not bend as easily as the whores who are often unliscenced and may as well be working for Walmart in the MRO's.

You wish to speak of FAA fines on airlines, think a savings v/s liability, have you ever hedged a solid bet in your life? Fact is airlines are responsible for all maintenance performed on their aircraft, they happily pay a fine then sue the MRO. I have experience and a ticket I value, I have been under the pressure of several MRO's and airlines. I work for an airline for one reason, the pay.. No really HGR MX takes longer at airlines, this is because the job is done correctly by most AMT's. Chop shops hammer out crap in 3/4 the time, time=revenue to an airline. an extra 10 days of revenue made by an aircraft out of C check is worth the occasional fine payed to the FAA, hell they are happy to pay the fines.

It is just not true that all airlines have 100% competent people or that they always have 100% committed people either. If you believe that airline owned maintenance organisations never make mistakes just read through the top 50 accident reports which cite maintenance error as a causal factor.

I accept that MRO's are no more immune to error than airline maintenance arms are either. It is just plain wrong and short sighted to condemn all MRO people while painting all airline staff as saints.

When you have spent as many years in both [as some PPRuNe contributors have] then you may have a more balanced view.
Most bias against Independent MRO's is rooted in the fear that they exist to takeover the work of airline maintainers.

The airlines only outsource work where:-

a] They get good safe products and,
b] Where it is economic to do so.

Look at the record of some European operators who:-

a] Do not have a base maintenance capability and,
b] Have had no accident in 20 years.

I wholly recognise the esprit which exists in airlines where flight, cabin, maintainers and management work together as a team. I know as I experienced it for 24 years, but I am not able to say I found standards within large MRO's in any way lacking in comparison with airlines.

ExQLA32
 

Guessing you have not been to one in the USA, I have been to one near or in Cambridge England and I have to say it was much different for the better than any of the hack shops here. Q: what is the ratio of LAME's to AME's in MRO's over there and does an AME have to do anything other than work on an aircraft to have that distinction?

How about a proper discussion about the original question?

has nothing to do with it

irrelevant if justified

dumb statement. Just proves the FAA audit properly nothing else.

Lets take Qantas to kick off this discussion properly.

http://www.pprune.org/dg-p-reporting...stigation.html

Remember CHIRP report about FMC's being wired up incorrectly by a foreign MRO involving a UK airline (can't remember which one)

So difficult to justify this statement

I think b is the only criteria and you know it. Does that make MRO's unsafe?
Not necessarily. But lets stop the pretence that aviation is only driven by safety. It aids nobody. Tell the bloody truth.

From what you say you're about as familiar with European MROs as I am Stateside ones. The problems you describe simply don't exist in Europe, and if as another guy suggested the FAA are doing their auditing jobs well, then they shouldn't be a lot different. The Feds we get in here are at least as fussy over standards, training and use of licensed personnel and the home grown inspectors.

A: There is a strict set of requirements for the training and experience of licensed guys within EASA, google "Part 66". It's also a requirement under EASA Part 145 to have a maximum specified number of unlicensed guys or connies to each licensed man.

If you're in the industry you should know the bloody truth, though your UserID does suggest a certain mindset. Of course there are cost pressures, we all know that. Maybe there are people who let those override safety, but if so I've never found them, and I've worked in a few places over the years. The art is to provide acceptable levels of safety at the minimum cost. Any engineer worth his title knows that and should not be afraid to stand his ground. Which is not the same as refusing to accept any changes from the status quo or whingeing that all the competition are allegedly unsafe.

dodo, we will start with one item and then we can determine how much worth we can put on the rest of your comments:

Please quote the regulation that covers your statement that:

still waiting dodo.

In house work.
 

I would like to add that the airline I am with has been able to bring more work in house as a result of process refinement and the threat of a workforce going union. Sure the workload has gone up but the company is saving money not having to rework as much hack MRO work and my brothers and I are secure and well paid in our jobs.