Filthy Filight Decks
 

I dont know about anyone else out there but the flightdecks on the airline i work for are filthy.

Wouldn't even let my dog eat off them... Bits of food, dead skin.... oh and watching my collegue pick his/her teeth with the check list...

Even if I wanted to clen my hands there is a used bar of soap in the toilet that has a strange black tinge to it..

If health and saftey were to climb on board i'm sure we wouldn't be able to eat or drink on the FD and have to be on 100% OXY all the time....

This has been brought up with the company... and...

"deep cleans are sched when the a/c goes for maint"

IT'S NOT OFTEN ENOUGH

so how clean is your FD/ checklist????


:ugh:

Have recently considered adding a portaloo and urinating in the cargo hold cause Im too lazy to go to the loo.


Lazy mofo I is :E

Try this.................

http://www.sagrotan.de/product_page/images/aerosol.jpg

Hi there
I had a look into a cockpit one time,just after the skipper had finished his pizza and discarded the box,crumbs and crusts on the floor, the console and every other unoccupied surface. He thought it was a great laugh until the cleaners declined to tidy up his mess and he was compelled to return to his 'pit and clean up.The look of contempt on his FO's face was priceless.
regards
TDD

May be you should consider doing a little housework next time you sit in your work area :ok:

I leave the flight deck as I expect to find it, neat and tidy. That means no rubbish left behind and all documents etc in the correct place.

However I don't expect to have to bring rubber gloves and Ajax with me to work in order to clean up, that's the cleaners job.

The company have the right to expect us not to make a mess, and we have the right to a properly maintained workplace.

Yup, absolutely filthy!

More than 40 types of urine found on the control column by an inspector once I heard. I try not to touch it anymore. :)

My captain decided the other day that we needed to do a bit of hoovering so we borrowed the cleaners' hoover. Well, when I say 'we' I obviously mean 'I'...

Engineer

Dude.... I dont expect to have to remove traces of gingavitis from my checklist and bits ready-chewed food from the control column and varoius buttons.

I'm sure you go ape when your coffee cup is left out and dirrty.... same thing little engine....

now be cool....

I'm with Engineer :ok:

Pilots make the mess, they should clean it up.

Its your office..keep it clean.
Just another example of these self appointed “professionals” behaviour.
I am with “engineer”

A box of Latex gloves doesn't cost much!

making a mess keeps cleaners in jobs - a bit like abandoning your shopping trolley in the supermarket car park - that keeps someone in a job also

and engineers make good cleaners too......them fightin' words me thinks

A subject dear to my heart. To illustrate how bad one particular aircraft was, I cleaned just my side during a long turnround. Thats all panels and switches CRT's and finished with a good vacuuming,

It looked like a "before & after" TV advert.............

Since when did the engineers or anyone else for that matter clean the floor around their desk at work, or the tables in the cafeteria's.
I too clean up after myself, but im not responsible or able to hover the carpets, remove the twenty dead blow flies from the bottom of the windscreen, wash the lambskin seat covers with 5 years of accumulated fart fumes in them, or remove the black skin oil marks from around the various switches on the overhead panel. Its true most cockpits are a health hazard.

There is a big difference between leaving your rubbish behind for others to take away which is unacceptable and the reasonable expectation that your office be a clean, healthy and pleasant place to work. If the marketing people, the accountants, the MD or in fact any other person who works on the ground found their office with weeks of dust coating every surface and YEARS of dust, muck and grime in the corners and recesses they would quite rightly be appalled and want something done about it. Can't see anything prima donna like about wanting your office cleaned once in a while, why should it be different because it's an aircraft.

In an ideal world, people should clean up after themselves. But for the company to leave it dirty despite receiving complaints isn't on.

They don't subject their passengers to filthy cabin (or one would hope not), so why should they subject their staff to filth? Dirty conditions is not exactly great for OH&S either.

Unless, that is, the company is trying to keep their pilots awake by creating a cockpit stink. :E (then again, the filth may ferment and create toxic gas :ooh: )

The flightdecks on our a/c are filthy. it's so bad that even a patch that looks clean, when wiped with a sanicom, coats it in black muck. Where you can see the filth it is absolutely disgusting.

The problem is that the cleaners aren't allowed to clean the flightdeck in case they break something or press buttons they shoulden't (!) and the engineers say that they are not cleaners and it's not they're department. It's an endless cycle, maybe a new job role should be created, 'Cleaners with flying experience' or 'Pilot's with cleaning experience'!

:yuk:

set the example me mom taught me
 

seat adjusted fully forward, belts crossed, ashtrays emptied of all debris, including inoffensive chewing gum wrappers, jeppesen closed and in correct order, fcoms in order, center console brushed clean, fingerprints carefully wiped off PFD and ND, thats the way we crew leave the cockpits of our expensive 330-200s...i was taught years ago to tidy up behind myself, like flush the toilet and dont leave !!!! on the bowl for somebody else to have to scour.........very basic education:hmm:

I fell slighty embarrassed to have to reprint this oldie once again.

Captain's entry in a (supposed) QANTAS Tech Log:-
"COCKPIT FILTHY. NOT FIT FOR PIGS "

Engineers reply to the same entry":-
COCKPIT CLEANED. NOW FIT FOR PIGS"

People...

It's all very good cleaning up the rubbish in the flight deck, which i'm sure most of us do....

It's the crap on the floor thats the problem... dead skin, tiny bits of food, short curly hairs:yuk:, spilt coffee that you dont have the equipment to clean up properly, that get stuck in the floor in all those wee places that just attract stuff like that and build up quickly...


I never said it was an engineers job to clean out the rubbish but surely something needs to be done to fix it...???

sweet....

One should leave the cockpit in a condition that they would like to find it. Common courtesy really. I have found cockpits in an appalling state, with charts and aproach plates missing, stolen?, when vacated by one or two so called ex "flag carrier" crews.

I have always thought when I have come into a cocpit that looks like a dog's breakfast, what on earth must their place of dwelling be like? In most cases it looks like the cockpit they have left, unless of course they have someone to clean up after them.

There is an old and true saying "if the operation looks like rubbish, then it normally is"

Rats love filth.

I think Max Angle has made a very valid point. Once we have cleaned up all the obvious mess from our own flying duty, there is still a lot of ongoing grime (dead skin, fluff crumbs and dust). This would be present in any work station including the MD's desk. The MD's desl along with those of her minions will of course get cleaned properly at least weekly if not daily.

Our company doesn't even seem to be able to find an aircraft cleaning company which owns a vaccum cleaner. There is little chance of an improvement.

As an ex-Engineer I have to agree with both opinions.

I have found disgusting Flight Decks and some things I would probably not want to discuss on a public forum.

Some Engineers are spectacularly clean in their approach to work, usually the ones that sort the FMC out and have escalated themselves to that position. The ones that like to appear on TV with a certain airline - shock horror stuff !!

The type who have long moved on from one end of a screwdriver to the other.

Before you jump, I have done both positions.

There are, of course, other types who have to get down in the dirt and do a - what I consider to be - true Engineering job. Those with the tools do get dirty.

Dirt and misplaced documentation is a burden of any Engineer and also Flight Deck crew.

I think this matter is well raised.

In my previous work - I had to go down into the Avionics bay, I, as a result got dirty, but it didn't stop me cleaning up the switches on the flight deck after I had had my hands on them.

I had a respect for the simple fact that the Flight Crew were going to be there for some time, eating, holding cups of coffee etc etc.

No decent reason why at the end of the day you cannot raise this with your Operations staff as it could be a basic H&S matter if it concerns you so much.

But just as common deceny goes by the way so does common deceny in Engineering staff.

However, look at the bigger picture as an Engineer I say.

You are there to support an airline, Flight Deck and Cabin Crew. They are all equally important to your livelihood at the end of the day.

Basic cleanliness from what you do as an aircraft Engineer is a compliment to the Crew. It doesn't take much effort and is generally appreciated.

Apologies if I have ranted on - a point needed to be made.

Have flown in a few dirty cockpits in my time and it isn't pleasant. Companies tend to shy away from paying 'proper' aircraft cleaners (I mean flight deck, not toilets/ cabin), presumably on the grounds of cost. Engineers often get burdened with it and (not for any particular reason) it often just doesn't get done.

As for pilots cleaning the cockpit, well, certainly tidying your rubbish away and following the example of meatball is to be commended. It is the more permanent grime that is the real problem and pilots don't have the cleaning materials and clothing to do this job, let alone the time to be crawling around on the floor pre/post flight.

What is really annoying though is the guy who uses the sani-wipe to clean the PFD screens after he has cleaned the headset and control column. It leaves smears all over them and is totally unsuitable for the job, leaving them less clear than the film of dust!

PP

GETTING HEATED!


:}

(you) "filthy flight decks".

I thought it was a spanish hosty talking about me.:E

Can you imagine how much dust and rubbish would appear in the flight deck during a rapid depress ?

Scary thought ...

Exactly Two Dots!

The "Windsor Incident" DC 10 cargo door blew out. Crew blinded by dust & crap from flight deck floor...

I employ a little 2" paintbrush (unused of course!) to dust off the panels and remove the crap that lodges in the joints between consoles. It helps. But its the filthy dirty headsets that get me! We can't have personal headsets, so we get to enjoy having dandruff and hair ridden earmuffs caressing our noggins.

I've had a recurring problem with lip infections - cold sores - in exactly the spot where the boom mike sits. YUCK!!:uhoh:

Are you allowed personal headsets? How did you arrange this with your employers?

We don't allow cleaners anywhere near the flight deck - things get pressed and moved that shouldn't be ! I always leave things as I'd like to find them but some guys are just slobs. there's often more food on the aisle stand than on my meal tray !!

Maxalt, you should be able to use your own headset but you'll need to have it approved by your engineers. Airlines should provide headsets for each individual pilot I think but the penny pinchers wont allow it.

Fit for pigs
 

Trislander : You have focussed precisely on the issue.

Kaptain M : even better

montys ex teaboy : Disturbing, yet valid

Lost_luggage34 : A very wise post

It all can be summed up by Professionalism.

I remember when I once made an entry in the tech log of one airline I used to fly for, suggesting the headsets should be cleaned of the different types of earwax they bore. (Sorry about that, but you all started it after all).

It caused me some HF problems of course, I can still remember the wide staring eyes of the technician as he looked at me and said “Are you serious man ???”.

So, not being one to give up so easily, I adopted an aggressive/defensive stance and cleaned them myself as part of the BF checks (matchsticks, Dettol and tissue did a reasonable job).

This is one of the most relevant treads I have read for a long time. Almost every post is spot on.

Thanks to HKG Phooey for posting it.

oTd

(What on earth am I doing writing about this sort of thing on a Sunday night ???????? I must try to get out a little more frequently).

As I have told a few women "you should be careful what you put near or in your mouth." :E

On the aircraft I have flown when the cabin is cleaned the cleaning staff have all ways hovered the Flight Deck and cleaned out the ash trays. But to not clean the personal rubbish away. That is and should be the responsibility of the crew member that occupies that work place.

In reply to HKP original post regarding checklists if these are used as toothpicks and you feel strongly about this, remember a defaced checklist has to be replaced and an entry in the tech log will ensure this :ok:

As for the headsets and oxygen masks the personal use of antispectic wipes is the simple solution

I once thrust my hand into a chart pocket and grasped a lubricated condom. I jumped so high I nearly hit my noggin on the overhead. In stark dread and terror I fished it out, to discover, thankfully, that It was yet unused. Most horrifying experience of my airline career, considerably more so than nearly departing a snowy runway.

I've seen "remove dead mouse from throttles" written up years ago.

;)

Just another little aside:

Why do those you fly in glass cockpits feel the need to leave their stubby little fingerprints on the glass screens? :hmm:

Its due to the common misconception that there is braille information contained on the surface. It drives me nuts. A snicom and paper towel first flight on the day cures it before the screens get to warm.

Worked this one out a while ago.

Trainers :D

They can't help touching the screens whilst pointing out items of passing interest to their vict... trainees.

Just like to point out that dirt is not just an asthetic consideration.
UK CAA CAAIPS point out that dirt attracts moisture, ergo can attract corrosion and other nasties.

I got fed up with cleaning up after dirty pilots (some, however, leave the FD in good condition). Amazed that coffee spillages are often not reported.

In case anyone hasn't noticed, airline maintenance departments aren't exactly over staffed. Personally I find my limited time best spent fixing/maintaining the aircraft so it can fly, not cleaning it, particularly as I am fed up with a minority of flight crew who feel it's their right to leave a flightdeck full of newspapers/supplements/magazines etc. If there was time to read them, there was time to clean up your own dirt.