Rookies blamed for Sea King foulups

[Slim]

Rookies blamed for Sea King foulups
By DEAN BEEBY, THE CANADIAN PRESS

http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/TorontoSun/News/2005/01/17/900954-sun.html

TECHNICIANS tending to Canada's aging Sea King helicopters are making dozens of maintenance mistakes each year, many of them affecting safety, newly released documents show. The mechanical foulups are blamed on an influx of new apprentices who lack experience on the finicky aircraft. Their harried and overworked instructors, veteran air force technicians, are also becoming distracted and making mistakes.

More than 75 flight safety reports filed over the year ending September 2004 show parts installed backwards, dirty rags left inside equipment, hoses fastened to the wrong hole, oil tanks not filled before flights and improper parts installed.

In one case, on Nov. 13, 2003, technicians connected the fuel line to the engine-oil system and the oil line to the fuel system.

TORPEDO FELL ON DECK

In another, on Sept. 9, 2003, a torpedo dropped onto the deck of HMCS Calgary in the Persian Gulf because a technician had failed to install a safety pin in the Sea King's weapon system.

There were no deaths, injuries or crashes resulting from any of these errors. But censored safety reports, obtained under the Access to Information Act, frequently cite inexperienced apprentices and overworked supervisors as a threat to safety.

The geriatric Sea King fleet's maintenance problems are legendary but the worst headache has been the lack of qualified avionics technicians, many of whom were lured in the late 1990s to the commercial airline industry. The air force has since recruited a full complement of 615 Sea King technicians, but about a third are apprentices who have yet to complete the four-year training program.

 

[Inch]

I tell ya, it sure makes a guy feel important when instead of 3 techs, there's 6 techs out there to start you.  ;D

In all fairness, 99.9% of that stuff is caught on either the A/B checks the techs do or the preflight walkaround that the pilots and crew do. I check all fluids, all the important bolts (read tail rotor, flight controls, and landing gear), any frayed or disconnected wires inside and up top in the engine and transmission compartments, and I also check for FOD (tools, rags, or basically anything that doesn't belong).

But again, the media misconstrues a term, in this case "Flight Safety". FS is something we all practice, the reports help us keep track of potentially dangerous situations and then act to correct them before an accident happens. In a nutshell, think of the old adage, "learn from other's mistakes because you won't live long enough to make them all yourself". If the reports aren't filed, then there's no followup and therefore no corrective action which leads to someone else possibly making the same mistake again.

Prior to going flying after maintenance, we do ground runs, then if the ground run checks out, the aircraft is taken on a test flight. If it passes that, then it's pronounced serviceable and put into the flying program. It's a very safe way of doing business and FS reports help us to track mistakes and improve on the overall safety of the system.

 

[SeaKingTacco]

Concur with Inch.   It is a bit dubious to ATI a year's worth of Flight Safety reports (a couple of which feature me in either supporting or starring roles...) and then draw a conclusion about the quality of our maintenance.   I for one am happy that people feel comfortable enough to report their mistakes, rather than bury them.   As an aside, the torpedo dropping incident on HMCS CALGARY had nothing at all to do with maintenance or experience levels.

While there is not as much experience on the hanger floor as there used to be, I have all the confidence in the world in my techs and our maintenance system.   That does not stop me from doing a complete walkaround before flying- after all, I am a link in the flight safety chain, too.

BTW Inch- keep doing doing those thorough walk-arounds.   It is often the new guys who spot problems before anyone else because they ask more questions or the material is fresher in their minds...

 

[Gunnerlove]

If this scares people they do not want to know about the crazy crap rolling around in commercial aircraft wings. 

 

[Fishbone Jones]

Geez, I don't know, when I was Safety Sysytems IIRC we needed three checks and signatures when we did maint on anything.

 

[Armageddon]

I tend to try and not think what civi aircraft have rattling around in them.

 

[Harbinger]

I was in the hangar when they dropped that torp, didn't think that it had made the news. No big deal unless your toes were under it.
But I did have other things on my mind - like figuring out which mistakes I'd made in my life, that had led up to me being stuck in the middle of the Gulf on one of those horrible ships.