BA 787 Nosewheel collapse @ LHR
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De-skilling is a creeping malaise in both engineering and piloting. The less you have to train someone, the less you have to pay them. You could call it the ISO9000 disease. You give an idiot a written procedure that he may never deviate from and you can pay that idiot as little as you like because the job requires no skill. The fewer LAEs you employ, the cheaper your operation. With the reduced number of LAEs those that remain come under intolerable pressure of work and naturally start to make mistakes. Incorporate a 'Murphy' element in the NLG hinge mechanism then you have the required recipe for disaster.
Interesting AAIB comment that the SB for modifying the 'Murphy' NLG to remove the possibility for confusion was 'prioritised' to some undetermined date in the future.... What does that tell you about the World's Favourite Airline?
When the UK was in the EU British registered aircraft eventually fell under the governance of EASA. The UK CAA were not slow to capitalise on that situation and promptly made redundant all those CAA personnel previously responsible for safety oversight. Unfortunately after Brexit those personnel have not been replaced. Instead the CAA relies heavily on individual airlines carrying out their own oversight via approved safety management systems. In one particular airline ASRs routinely go uninvestigated unless AAIB participation is expected. The net result is that pilots don't bother to file ASRs any more. There is a huge difference between 'monitoring for trends' and simply kicking dangerous issues into the long grass.
With airlines now 'self-investigating' incidents we are quickly moving towards the situation experienced in the US where the FAA relaxed governance over Boeing which allowed the 'self-certification' of the 737 Max. As we know that did not end well.
Interesting AAIB comment that the SB for modifying the 'Murphy' NLG to remove the possibility for confusion was 'prioritised' to some undetermined date in the future.... What does that tell you about the World's Favourite Airline?
When the UK was in the EU British registered aircraft eventually fell under the governance of EASA. The UK CAA were not slow to capitalise on that situation and promptly made redundant all those CAA personnel previously responsible for safety oversight. Unfortunately after Brexit those personnel have not been replaced. Instead the CAA relies heavily on individual airlines carrying out their own oversight via approved safety management systems. In one particular airline ASRs routinely go uninvestigated unless AAIB participation is expected. The net result is that pilots don't bother to file ASRs any more. There is a huge difference between 'monitoring for trends' and simply kicking dangerous issues into the long grass.
With airlines now 'self-investigating' incidents we are quickly moving towards the situation experienced in the US where the FAA relaxed governance over Boeing which allowed the 'self-certification' of the 737 Max. As we know that did not end well.
It does make you wonder what was going on, given the issue was known-about for over two years prior, with the initial quick-fix suggestion by Boeing: a pretty simple "fill the hole up with silicon".
I particularly felt sorry for the Mech 2 checking the "40" new memos on his ipad, one of which was the wrong-hole alert.
You give an idiot a written procedure that he may never deviate from and you can pay that idiot as little as you like because the job requires no skill.
This design was an accident waiting to happen. However, once the problem came to light, it took way too long thru all boards, committees, etc. to be sorted out, and COVID measures did not help with that. Turkish Airlines DC-10 near Paris (decades ago) comes to mind: -known design problem, SB was out, only timing was such that before the airplane was modified, it crashed, killing all aboard. I am also working in Quality stuff for years, now SMS etc. but sometimes I feel that thru all the benefits of orderly processess etc. a simple common sense has evaporated. Instead of having people aware, what they are doing, we give them procedures, loads of warnings, cautions, memos... everything, except proper education. (and money that goes with it).
When I did maintenance licence 30 years ago, I was paid (near inimum wage) to sit in the classroom to listen to the best and most experienced guys in the company for more than a year for basic training theory only. Now, future AMTs just click a,b,c answers on a bunch of exams, study at home on their free time, (if they study at all, some just try to get sample questions on the web to memorize) and collect practical experience on the go, often without any serious coaching. Then we have frozen water in AOA sensors and/or in NLG steering electronics, pushed there with high pressure cleaning, 40 times too much biocide in fuel tank, leaking oil filters as they were squeezed obviously incorrectly into the housing and other hard to believe events. It seems to me that modern airplanes take considerable wrongdoing due to excellent design, but this is obviously changing now-designs not so brilliant anymore. Hope Airbus will not follow the suit.
When I did maintenance licence 30 years ago, I was paid (near inimum wage) to sit in the classroom to listen to the best and most experienced guys in the company for more than a year for basic training theory only. Now, future AMTs just click a,b,c answers on a bunch of exams, study at home on their free time, (if they study at all, some just try to get sample questions on the web to memorize) and collect practical experience on the go, often without any serious coaching. Then we have frozen water in AOA sensors and/or in NLG steering electronics, pushed there with high pressure cleaning, 40 times too much biocide in fuel tank, leaking oil filters as they were squeezed obviously incorrectly into the housing and other hard to believe events. It seems to me that modern airplanes take considerable wrongdoing due to excellent design, but this is obviously changing now-designs not so brilliant anymore. Hope Airbus will not follow the suit.
Last edited by hoistop; 7th Nov 2022 at 15:02.
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... but sometimes I feel that thru all the benefits of orderly processess etc. a simple common sense has evaporated. Instead of having people aware, what they are doing, we give them procedures, loads of warnings, cautions, memos... everything, except proper education. (and money that goes with it).
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This design was an accident waiting to happen. However, once the problem came to light, it took way too long thru all boards, committees, etc. to be sorted out, and COVID measures did not help with that. Turkish Airlines DC-10 near Paris (decades ago) comes to mind: -known design problem, SB was out, only timing was such that before the airplane was modified, it crashed, killing all aboard. I am also working in Quality stuff for years, now SMS etc. but sometimes I feel that thru all the benefits of orderly processess etc. a simple common sense has evaporated. Instead of having people aware, what they are doing, we give them procedures, loads of warnings, cautions, memos... everything, except proper education. (and money that goes with it).
When I did maintenance licence 30 years ago, I was paid (near inimum wage) to sit in the classroom to listen to the best and most experienced guys in the company for more than a year for basic training theory only. Now, future AMTs just click a,b,c answers on a bunch of exams, study at home on their free time, (if they study at all, some just try to get sample questions on the web to memorize) and collect practical experience on the go, often without any serious coaching. Then we have frozen water in AOA sensors and/or in NLG steering electronics, pushed there with high pressure cleaning, 40 times too much biocide in fuel tank, leaking oil filters as they were squeezed obviously incorrectly into the housing and other hard to believe events. It seems to me that modern airplanes take considerable wrongdoing due to excellent design, but this is obviously changing now-designs not so brilliant anymore. Hope Airbus will not follow the suit.
When I did maintenance licence 30 years ago, I was paid (near inimum wage) to sit in the classroom to listen to the best and most experienced guys in the company for more than a year for basic training theory only. Now, future AMTs just click a,b,c answers on a bunch of exams, study at home on their free time, (if they study at all, some just try to get sample questions on the web to memorize) and collect practical experience on the go, often without any serious coaching. Then we have frozen water in AOA sensors and/or in NLG steering electronics, pushed there with high pressure cleaning, 40 times too much biocide in fuel tank, leaking oil filters as they were squeezed obviously incorrectly into the housing and other hard to believe events. It seems to me that modern airplanes take considerable wrongdoing due to excellent design, but this is obviously changing now-designs not so brilliant anymore. Hope Airbus will not follow the suit.
Let alone, be able to make distinctions between "regular" and "important" stuff, everything tends to get the same importance classification, which in itself is a dangerous aspect.
Add to that the amount "new" technicians need to learn has become that much, these learners no longer can absorb all they are considered to get known, old-school style. So, curriculum selections need to be made, as well drip-feeding this knowledge in a consumable way.
Compare that with countries, where a significant amount of educational time is spent on imprinting "religion" items. When children spent 50% of their available learning time on religion items, they will stay (significantly) behind their mates in other world-parts, who spent all their learning time on subjects that matter for economic prosperity. There are reasons why religion based authoritarian countries are economically very weak (and often survive on Gas/Oil sales), this is one of them.
