4 ms·
There's a lot of shoot from the hip emotional/sarcastic responses to this, but the lack of documentation is absolutely one of the main issues. If mechanics are
by Calavar 3y ago
There's a lot of shoot from the hip emotional/sarcastic responses to this, but the lack of documentation is absolutely one of the main issues.
If mechanics are improvising with questionable practices, what are you going to do? Fire the dozen mechanics who used Dawn soap and now everything's fixed and we can trust all 737 doors for the foreseeable future? No, of course not, because that doesn't solve the underlying systems issue. You need to create a workplace culture of sticking to the documented process, and you can't do that if there isn't a clearly documented process to begin with. Sloppy engineering culture and QA culture trickles its way down, and that's what we're seeing here.
- extraduder_ire 3y agoBoth using commercial soap as lube, and a plastic card as a gague seem like symptoms rather than the actual root of problems here. I have to assume the same time crunch that caused them to use quicker to acquire materials than what they ought to have used (and likely had stocked nearby) is what cut down on documenting these processes. Documentation of what was actually done would certainly be another useful layer in the swiss-cheese safety model commercial aviation relies on.
- instagib 3y agoI’ve written tech manual procedures and maintenance instructions. It’s common to add alternative solutions for cleaning or lubricating parts. I’m sure there’s a more appropriate way to put it other than dawn plus hotel card because that would not pass the approval process for my organization. > Clean with a general purpose soap and water with a firm applicator card, plastic or nylon spudger, or plastic spackle knife.