Improper aircraft maintenance practices and their consequences

¶ … improper aircraft maintenance procedures and practices in the aviation industry. The paper discusses different aircraft incidents resulting from these improper maintenance practices as well as those in which human factors were the causes. In each of these causes of aircraft incidents, detailed descriptions have been given with the major cause of the incidents clearly explained. Furthermore, system safety management has also been examined with explanations on how to make the maintenance systems effective, efficient, better and safer. Among several airlines within the global aviation industry, the paper shows some of the world's safest airlines with a list of some of the safety measures taken by one of the airlines. While it's recognized that these airlines have had several accidents, the reason why they are among the safest across the world is due to the less accidents and fatalities they have experienced.

Introduction:

As a fundamental element of the aviation system, aircraft system maintenance acts as an important support structure to the global aviation industry. The pressures on aircraft system maintenance continue to grow due to the development of the air traffic and the tough requirements of commercial schedules. These requirements of commercial schedules enforce increased demands on aircraft use for on-time performance. Throughout the history of the global aviation industry, aircraft incidents resulting from improper aircraft maintenance practices and human errors have continued to occur. However, the increased demands for on-time will result in the likelihood of more human errors and successive incidents in the aircraft system's safety net ("Human Factors," 2002).

Nonetheless, human factors in the aircraft system and safety maintenance contribute to few aircraft incidents and are considered as casual factors in various aircraft incidents. In order to lessen the occurrences of these aircraft incidents, it's important for the airline industry to adopt and implement proper maintenance practices. Moreover, the aviation industry should learn from previous incidents and correct the faults in order to prevent maintenance-related safety incidents. Most of the airline incidents have resulted in various losses including the loss of lives and damage of property worth million of dollars.

Aircraft Incidents from Improper Maintenance Practices:

As mentioned earlier, improper maintenance practices have been one of the major causes of aircraft incidents in the recent past. These practices have resulted in major aircraft accidents across the global aviation industry highlighting the need of proper system maintenance and safety measures. Some of these incidents would have been prevented if aircrafts had an efficient and effective system safety management. However, there are several aircraft incidents that have occurred in the recent past due to improper system maintenance practices with one of the major incidents including Air Midwest Flight 5481 accident.

Flight 5481 Incident:

This flight from Charlotte, North Carolina to Greenville, South Carolina was functioning as U.S. Airways Express Flight 5481 crashed in January 2003 killing all the twenty-one people on board. Moments after taking off from the Charlotte/Douglas International Airport, the Beechcraft 1900D collapsed into a U.S. Airways shelter and ruptured into flames after the plane's nose jerked upward. While the airplane killed all the twenty-one people on board, there were no major injuries on the U.S. Airways hangar employees with only one person on the ground sustaining minor injuries. Additionally, the aircraft had no flight attendants due to the fact that aircraft with nineteen seats are exempted from having flight attendants according to the U.S. Federal regulations. Moreover, according to the regulations, functioning without a flight attendant for these kinds of aircraft is considered as normal.

The subject of this incident was featured in the 2008 Air Crash Investigation with several maintenance problems being attributed to the cause of this accident. Initially, it was thought that the fuel cap on runway may have resulted in the accident since a Concorde aircraft had collapsed and killed over 100 people because of the debris on runway. However, this claim was later refuted following close examination of the fuel cap that revealed no crucial damage. Secondly, it was also thought that the plane experienced wake turbulence because of the fact that investigators found that a Bombardier CRJ had taken off earlier on the similar runway. The Bombardier CRJ had crashed killing over 250 people after experiencing wake turbulence on the same runway. Similar to the first claim, the thought was quickly dismissed because Flight 5481 didn't follow the flight path of the Bombardier CRJ.

Following investigations, the NTSB (National Transportation Safety Board) discovered that there are two major causes of the crash. Both of the causes were attributed to improper system maintenance practices with the plane crashing regardless of the pilots' efforts in pushing the control column forward. The most recent service on the aircraft which incorporated fine-tuning the elevator control cable was conducted two nights before the crash. However, it was discovered that the mechanic who performed the regulation of the elevator cables had never worked on such an aircraft ("Air Midwest Flight," n.d.). This service was also conducted two nights before the crash despite of the requirement for the planes to undergo a regular and thorough maintenance scrutiny every 1200 miles.

The inexperienced mechanic had incorrectly set turnbuckles controlling tension on elevator cables making it difficult for the pilots to have enough pitch control because of inadequate elevator travel. Additionally, the aircraft's maintenance supervisor skipped the necessary step of a post-adjustment control examination that ensures proper functioning of an aircraft. It was also discovered that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) were aware of the grave insufficiencies during the training procedures but did nothing to correct them. The plane also crashed because of it being out-of-balance and overloaded as a result of the inaccurate passenger weight estimations that were approved by FAA. However, the major cause of the crash was the fact that the mechanic skipped nine steps in the maintenance procedures during the examinations on adjustments made to the cables.

Aircraft Incidents resulting from Human Factors:

The second major cause of major aircraft incidents can be attributed to human factors that include the crew's negligence in taking appropriate measures that can help in avoiding such incidents. One of the major aircraft incidents resulting from the crew's negligence as a human factor in aircraft incidents is Flight 1455 plane crash.

Flight 1455 Incident:

The Southwest Airlines Flight 1455 was a passenger flight from Las Vegas to California with 142 people on board that crashed during landing as a result of the overrunning the runway. In addition to being a Boeing 737-3T5, the airplane crashed in March 2000 while landing at an airport in Burbank, California. The aircraft came to rest on Hollywood Way after crashing through a metal blast fence and then through the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport perimeter wall. While the 42 people on board sustained minor injuries, two other people received severe injuries due to the crash. As a result of inclement weather within the area, flight 1455 took off more than two hours behind schedule with the aircraft being instructed to maintain 430 km/h by the SCT controller when it was 35 km north of the airport. As indicated by the controller, this speed was to enable the aircraft to be in the approach outline between two other flights.

As the captain acknowledged these instructions from the controller, he was to either maintain the same speed or even a greater speed until further notice. Based on the airlines standard procedures, the captain was notified by the first officer that the intended airspeed for landing would be 256 km/h. However, the captain informed the first officer on the airspeed he had been instructed to maintain by the SCT controller. During several instances, the controller cleared the aircraft to descend to 1,500 m and 900 m respectively. While restricted to remain at 3,000 ft above sea level, the flight was later cleared for a visual approach to runway 8 by the controller.

The captain started to slow the plane by deploying the flaps as soon as the aircraft attained 3,000 ft with the cockpit receiving a sink rate warning from the ground proximity warning system. While the angle of descent for many aircrafts landing on the same runway was between 3 to 4 degrees, flight 1455 was descending at angle of 7 degrees. As the ground proximity warning system continued to issue the warning and the cockpit started to sound, the pilots overlooked the warnings ("Southwest Airlines," 2010). Basically, the accident was caused by the negligence of the crew to respond positively to the warning and the sound in the cockpit as well as the crew's excessive airspeed.

The flight crew failed to abandon the approach when stable landing conditions were unachievable, high glide path and excessive flight speed. While the controller's positioning of the flight in a way that left no safety options to the crew, the flight crew would have avoided the crash if they took other possible measures following the warnings and cockpit sound. After the accident, the pilot even admitted that he knew that the flight had not met safe landing conditions as it passed 500 ft of altitude. Moreover, rather than abandoning and re-attempting the landing, the captain decided to continue the landing even with the unsafe landing guidelines. The accident would have been avoided if the flight crew labored together, followed procedures and abandoned the unsuccessful landing.

System Safety Management:

In order to avoid incidents in the global aviation industry, it's important for airlines to implement effective and efficient maintenance and safety practices other than the improper practices. These measures will help in lessening incidents that result from improper aircraft maintenance practices and human factors. For maintenance personnel in most of the developed aviation systems, time pressures are usually a factor in their work. However, it's still important for these personnel to attain high reliability and efficiency in their work and thus reducing the number of aircraft incidents. Various organizational procedures and practices for aircraft maintenance and safety have been established such as inspections and logbook recordings.

Nonetheless, regardless of these maintenance procedures and practices, there are other incidents that occur because of human errors. While human errors are expected in places where humans are involved, it's important to adopt practices that lessen the occurrence of these errors. As these errors are reduced, aircraft incidents resulting from this human factor will also be reduced. In addition to the organizational procedures for aircraft maintenance, there are various important factors for a better, safer, efficient and effective system maintenance system. To have this kind of aircraft maintenance system, airlines should ensure that there is:

Effective Team Coordination:

To achieve a better, safer, effective and efficient maintenance system, effective team coordination is necessary since it enhances productivity and satisfaction. Safety and efficiency is improved by teamwork since it helps in the recognition and correction of individual errors. Effective team coordination also fosters active interaction of individuals during a task process rendering the safety procedures effective (Suzuki, von Thaden & Geibel, 2008). According to the Federal Aviation Administration, there are several factors that are necessary for effective teamwork such as openness, clear purpose, participation, shared leadership and listening.

Effective team coordination helps in achieving better, safer, efficient and effective aircraft maintenance practices since potential factors resulting in maintenance coordination problems are dealt with. The established procedures for aircraft maintenance can only be efficient and safer if effective teamwork coordination is in place. In fact, it's been discovered that problems in aircraft maintenance events that eventually influence safety are sometimes brought by lack of effective teamwork coordination.