PSA's fleet grounded

As soon as I clicked this thread, this popped up. Not kidding:

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I don't know what PSA's situation is. Elsewhere I have always been a little impressed and disappointed that continued airworthiness at many operations is (was anymore?) an elaborate ballet of spreadsheets maintained by a handful of people selected via an evolutionary attrition over the course of a decade.

They are not "important," but they are crucial and difficult to replace.
 
Usually even emergency ADs give an operator a reasonable amount of time to get the aircraft inspected. "within the next 25 hours of flight time or 10 days" or something along those lines. However when an inspection has been missed for years, the feds expect you to stop flying immediately. This is partly the result of the Alaska 261 crash, where a key part hadn't been lubricated properly for years.

About 12 years ago, mainline AA had a similar issue with an inspection on MD-80 wiring bundles. The entire Mad Dog fleet was grounded while mechanics measured the spacing of zip ties with a ruler. 2.5 man hours per plane X most of AA's narowbody fleet snarled everything for a few days.
 
Minuteman said:
I don't know what PSA's situation is. Elsewhere I have always been a little impressed and disappointed that continued airworthiness at many operations is (was anymore?) an elaborate ballet of spreadsheets maintained by a handful of people selected via an evolutionary attrition over the course of a decade.

They are not "important," but they are crucial and difficult to replace.
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Do 121 and 135 operations not use contractors like CAMP? Jeez.
 
Seems a little extreme. Hard for me to imagine a critical situation due to the nose gear. I mean even if it didn’t come down, handled correctly shouldn’t result in injury or loss of life.
I mean I haven’t heard of any major nose gear door issues, I don’t think they are going to appear just because they just noticed these inspections haven’t been done.
 
Richman said:
I’m sure whoever was responsible will skip away scott free with a spring in their step and a song in their heart.
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And drift softly back to earth via their golden parachute. Oh! To be of the executron class! Bliss with a kiss (...of the nosewheel?)
 
mwflyer said:
Only if it’s an upper mgmt. screw up.
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If "Upper" Management ever gets blamed for anything, somebody, somewhere in Legal, HR, Training, or even Marketing has surely screwed up, left a box unchecked, and is ultimately to blame. No more Manhattans for them! And no more of those company-paid psychological manipulation courses either, bygod! Hey! That guy in the back didn't give me a "Harumph!"
 
pwttogfk said:
If you can’t get monthly hours/cycles right...maybe airplanes shouldn’t be your thing.
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Me? I've never worked on anything that might be considered 121, it's not beneath me but it's something I never pursued. My point was the tracking programs are worthless if the data going into them isn't valid then they're not tracking much at all are they?
 
Space Monkey said:
If "Upper" Management ever gets blamed for anything, somebody, somewhere in Legal, HR, Training, or even Marketing has surely screwed up, left a box unchecked, and is ultimately to blame. No more Manhattans for them! And no more of those company-paid psychological manipulation courses either, bygod! Hey! That guy in the back didn't give me a "Harumph!"
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Pretty much this.

The only time I've ever seen any real consequences is when the "bros" or "gals" decided to drop dime on their buddy to save their own skin. This is almost always done via "conspiracy among colleagues".

In any circle of 5 or more people, there's always someone who is the designated "bus speed bump" by the alpha and his/her two besties (who drag the fourth along by saying "go along or it's you"). If you're looking around your group wondering who the bus bait is, its YOU.

When I first noticed this, I just wrote if off as coincidence. But I've seen it so many times, large and small, from small departments to entire corporations and organizations, I've elevated it to a law of nature.

By the way, if you're wondering how you fix it, you can't. The fix is already in by those juiced in. The ONLY way to deal with the situation is leave, and leave soon enough that you won't get any poo on you when the s4!t grenade inevitably goes off.
 
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It was a three bolt inspection on the nose gear door. Company had added the procedure to the MX manuals, but forgot to, you know, do them. They ended up notifying the faa and self grounded the fleet, and then completed all the inspections overnight.

fun
 
Believe it or not sometimes these simple inspections where all you do is pull out a bolt, inspect it and either replace it or reinstall it are likely to require gear swings, sometimes including emergency blow down extension. It seems excessive, but all of the work done has to be done in accordance with the aircraft maintenance manual and whatever reference the customer bulletin, service bulletin or airworthiness directive lists. If it was three simple bolts they'd of done it previously. Wonder how many sets of jacks they own?
 
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