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Sydnie Michelle Jordan Professor Alicia Bolton ENG 101 21 November 2013 Maintenance Safety for the Faultless Throughout history, airline personnel, especially mechanics, have been required to do a stringent safety check of all airplanes prior to takeoff. From the required stops in a maintenance facility, to the routine preflight inspections, pilots rely on the safety of the planes. The passengers men, women, and children of all nationalities depend on airplanes being thoroughly inspected and the problems corrected prior to takeoff. However, in Steven Caseys Caught on Tape, not all parts of the plane were checked prior to the plane taking flight. The flight pilot, copilot, and maintenance crew allowed the plane to take flight without doing an inspection of the top of the plane. Because the plane was tall, only the visible things that the maintenance crew and pilots could view were checked. Although everything seemed in perfect condition, the static ports that are located on top of the airplane were not. In fact, the static ports had gone unchecked by the maintenance crew and were sealed with masking tape. If this simple thing had been checked on the preflight inspection of AeroPerus Flight 603, all pe rsons aboard would not have died. Although airlines have made numerous improvements and believe that their planes are in perfect condition to fly, many other faulty mistakes have occurred in airline planes. If one very important task were left out of the preflight inspection in AeroPerus Airline, such other mistakes could occur on other airlines. One of the major causes of these mistakes is human errors made within the maintenance crew. The maintenance crews are also

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sometimes poorly trained and poorly supervised when they are pressured to quickly complete the preflight inspection of a plane. In order to create safer flights for passengers, various changes should be made to prevent human errors in aircrafts maintenances. Due to past airline crashes, mechanics need to look more closely to the mistakes made and prevent the reoccurring errors. Sidney Dekker, a very experienced airline pilot who has written numerous books on human error, writes that if efficient safety systems are not efficient if they are not kept up. One distinct point he makes is if we in human safety keep doing what we have been doing in the past, we may become one of those systems that drift into failure (Dekker xv). In other words, mechanics should improve airline safety by noticing their past mistakes in crashes and making changes to not let those mistakes ever occur again. However, several top officials, including the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), keep stating We dont have a problem because we have the best safety record in the world (Katel, par. 47). The FAA sees no problem with airline safety because of the safety record they have managed to retain. Airlines executives contend that declining accident statistics prove that flying is safer than ever (Worsnop, par. 1). Even though the statistics prove that flying is safer, it is not safer than ever. This is shown by the plane crashes that happen on a daily basis. The FAA knew about the mechanic problems with the Value Jet plane, before the plane crash in May, 1996. Rather than fixing the errors, they decided not to do anything, because they thought the airline itself was improving. One spokesman for the FAA said that the Value Jet Airlines had met all the required regulations; the other changes the airline had not met were voluntary. Thus, airlines cannot make assumptions that everything will be okay based on their opinions, due to the variety of airplane crashes happening in our world today.

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Mechanical failure has been a major problem for airlines because of the lack of training. In January of 2003, a commuter plane crashed in Charlotte, NC. The mechanical procedure was described by a safety board chairwoman as the entire system here was a breakdown situation (Wald, par.2). This crash was caused by a mechanic that was not fully trained to do the job. The mechanic was assigned to adjust the tail controls of the plane with no prior knowledge or experience to do so. To diminish problems such as this, mechanics should not be assigned a task in their first week of being hired. A mechanic should be required to go through six weeks of training, learning step-by-step on how to complete maintenance and repairs of each part of the plane. Once completed, they still should not be allowed to touch a plane that will take flight. A mechanic should then be tested on each task they have been trained on in the past six weeks of their training. Only after they have passed these practical examinations may they begin maintenance procedures on any aircraft. Another way to ensure flight safety is to improve upon how maintenance is supervised. When AeroPerus Flight 603, a 757 airplane crashed into the ocean fifty miles offshore , several agencies speculated as to the cause of the crash. However, when the wreckage was pulled from the ocean the investigators were surprised to see that on the left side of the top of the plane, all three left-side static ports the sensors used to measure outside air pressure and, thus, altitude and speed were covered with masking tape (Casey 131). This seemingly small mistake caused a catastrophe that took the lives of nine crew members and sixty-one passengers. Accurate information could not be sent to the cockpits computers. Prior to the flight, the plane had been in the maintenance facility. While the plane was in the facility, the mechanics decide to polish the underside. To prevent air contamination, the mechanics

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covered the static ports with masking tape. The masking tape was never removed (Casey 132). No one reviewed the procedures of the maintenance crew. If a supervisor was present and made clear to the mechanics that, after polishing the underside of the aircraft, they needed to remove the masking tape from the static ports or else the pilots would not be able to receive accurate measurements and information needed. Supervising the work of mechanics is an important job that needs to be taken seriously. The supervisor needs to set work standards and enforce them so that mechanics will have a lesser chance of making a fatal error. After maintenance is done, it should be a priority for the supervisor to make sure every individuals assignment meet quality requirements. Furthermore, there should be changes made on how maintenance and preflight inspections are done on an aircraft that is ready for takeoff. Before preflight inspections can be completed, there needs to be a review on what was done through a maintenance report or a logbook. Carmody states: logbooks should reflect the maintenance done (Carmody 49). For example, if mechanics covered the static ports with masking tape, they need to either write that in their logbooks or maintenance report so their supervisor can see what they need to correct before giving the aircraft permission to takeoff. Logbooks and maintenance reports show methods, procedures, and completed work for supervisors to review and make sure all major repairs and alterations are done correctly for each inspection. Basically, if logbooks and maintenance reports are thoroughly completed and reviewed carefully, any person, from mechanic to pilots, can pinpoint any errors when modifications are done or any steps that were accidentally forgotten. Making sure everything is logged correctly can drastically reduce the amount of errors and should be enforced strictly within the aircraft maintenance field.

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Lastly, human errors in aircraft maintenances caused many fatal consequences in the past and will more than likely continue to do so. Although humans will never be perfect, the chances of human error could dwindle through new policies and regulations by the FAA. Even the FAA admits that, most of the time, errors during maintenance and inspections are caused by human error. A typical reason for human error is being used to a norm. For example, a team of mechanics is assigned to do an engine swap. The new engine comes with a long list of supplies and procedures needed to be followed, but to save money and time, the supervisor decides on performing the swap with the method the team is used to, even though there is a chance the engine could malfunction midflight. The FAA could enforce a new policy where mechanics are required to follow the recommended directions from the manufacturers of aircraft parts. Another common human error is lack of communication between shifts. This could be remedied by a policy that requires maintenance personnel to discuss precisely what has been done and what needs to be done to the next shift. Even if new policies are made, the terrifying truth is that human error will continue to plague the world, but at least the statistic could be lesser than the current state that it is now. Without a shadow of doubt, flight safety is very important to passengers, it should also be the priority of those who enforce it as well. In order to better prevent aircraft failure due to overlooked inspections/preflight inspections, changes need to be made by the FAA. A single mistake, even minor ones, may lead to the death of sixty or more. Human error will forever continue to haunt airline safety, but it can be much better than the current state that it is in. Innocent lives of thousands depend on how well mechanics inspect aircrafts, so it should be

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needless to say inspections need to be done thoroughly in order to prevent disasters like the AeroPeru Flight 603.

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Works Cited Carmody, Douglas. Airplane Maintenance and Repair: A Manual for Owners, Builders, Technicians, and Pilots. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1998. Print. Casey, Steven. Caught on Tape. The Atomic Chef: And other True Tales of Design, Technology, and Human Error. New York: Aegean Publishing, 2006. 108-133. Print. Dekker, Sidney. Ten Questions about Human Error: A New View of Human Factors and Safety System Safety. Lawrence Erlbaum, 2005. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost). Web. 2 November 2013. Katel, Peter. "Future of the Airlines." CQ Researcher 7 Mar. 2008: Web. 4 Nov. 2013. Wald, Matthew L. Poor Airplane Maintenance Is Said to Have Led to Crash. The New York Times 27 Feb. 2004: Web. 2 November 2013. Worsnop, Richard L. "Airline Safety." CQ Researcher 8 Oct. 1993: Web. 4 Nov. 2013.