Human Factors in Aviation Maintenanacne

This blog examines the impact of human factors in aviation maintenance. You must have an understanding of what human factors are and how they affect our daily living and work environments, more importantly the aviation maintenance environment. To put it in simple terms; it is about people in the environments in which they work, live and play. It is about the bond forged between the machines, equipment, and procedures about them.

THE UNDER RATED SHELL MODEL

To facilitate the understanding of this under rated science, one must use the SHELL Model when addressing the source of many human errors. Lets begin with a description of the model itself; the S-Software refers to items such as checklist, technical manuals, symbologys and so on. H-Hardware is the items that make up or interact with man, seats, handles, switches, nuts and bolts. E-Enviorment is everything from weather, to work climate and biological rythms. The last part of the model is L-Livewire, which has multiple components. The is the physiological aaspect, heatlh diet, rest, and fatigue, just to name a few. The psychological, emotional make-up, attitude, motivation, and judgement are some examples. Throughout the aviation maintenance world, whether it is in the civilian sector or the miitary, there are many areas of responsibility when it comes to putting aircrat in the air. Many things happen to an aircraft before it ever taxies as far as maintenance is concerned and there is a generous amount of time for anything to happen. Lets examine the Human Factors in the following incident.

UNCONTAINED ENGINE FAILURE

This report explains the accident involving Delta Air Lines flight 1288, an MD-88, which experienced an uncontained engine failure during the initial part of its takeoff roll at Pensacola Regional Airport in Pensacola, Florida, on July 6, 1996. Safety issues in the report include the limitations of the blue etch anodize process, manufacturing defects, standards for the fluorescent penetrant inspection process, the performance of nondestructive testing. Here are a few issues involving maintenance that demonstrate how human error was casual in this accident. The findings of the FAA review included:

1. There is no assurance that the material received by the nondestructive inspection organization for FPI processing was clean enough for an adequate FPI. (H-Hardware)

2. [Engine part] cleaning personnel receive OJT [on-the-job-training], with no formal classroom training. The team noted that sensitivity to the criticality of the engine components and the end purpose for which these components were being cleaned…was not provided as part of the OJT (Software/L-Livewire).

3. Visible trash and debris were…under the transport rollers utilized on the FPI line. Since there are no protective covers over the tanks containing the FPI process materials, similar trash and debris is expected in the FPI material.

4. The transport rings utilized for parts holding during the FPI process became easily contaminated with fluorescent material. One inspector was noted having a difficult time inspecting the inside of a hole because of the high fluorescent background from the transport ring visible through the hole. He tried shielding the ring from view with his glove, but it also was contaminated with fluorescent material. (Hardware/E-Environment)
5. One inspector was noted touching the component to be inspected, and smearing the inspection area, before inspecting it. (L-Livewire).
6. There appears to be no uniform way of handling and indexing components during evaluation in the inspection booth. (S-Software)
Human Factors an on going process

With various view on how to track and resolve the matters of human errors, as they are associated with aircraft maintenance. It will continue to be a grueling process; after-all no one wants to be at blame. As time will unearth Human Factor can be assimilated and dealt with in a scientific manner.