The Disturbing Truth About How Airplanes Are Maintained Today.

[Garnier Fructis]

In this case, not being able to read or speak English is an increase in risk. These aren't local airlines; the repair manuals they provide are in English. Not following the manual while repairing isn't just one of those things you can write off as 'not likely.' Repairs which don't follow the guidelines have crashed many, many planes over the decades. And many more would crash if the FAA didn't mandate better maintenance procedures for U.S. facilities. Moving repairs out of the country essentially provides a way around safety regulation.

It's also wrong to point to local airlines as proof of repair competence. Those airlines aren't printing their manuals in English, so it's not comparable. The FAA has been studying ways to reduce language based maintenance errors. This isn't a matter of racism or discrimination, this is a matter of safety.

So after a few crashes, we'll either see a push to perform maintenance domestically, or we'll force airlines to translate their manuals to the local language.

[MasterOfNone]

Ahem,

1. I am an airplane mechanic who holds my certifications and I can tell you that the media hypes up a lot of the mechanical shit a lot more than needed. There are several redundancy systems in an aircraft so depending on each particular example, there is typically a backup.

2. People that know nothing about the requirements to work on aircraft, kindly shut the hell up.

[Masark]

And fast food workers think they should be making anywhere near $15/hour, hahahahahaha.

Yes, they should. And the aircraft tech should be making half again that.

[Auxora]

Even domestically airlines and airports have become so shoestring budget that how they are run is pretty nuts. At our medium-sized local airport, you'd think there are separate staff taking care of everything. Nope, not for at least a few years anymore. My last flight the PILOTS came down and unloaded the luggage off the plane. Meanwhile, 1 lady who we were friends with ran the ticket counter and was also responsible for...luggage loading, refueling the planes, and best of all, de-icing lol. She said they are so short-staffed that during the winter at times she's been running alongside planes as they start to taxi away to try to get some de-icer on the wings - and said a few have left that she'd never step foot on in the winter because there was no time or staff to properly de-ice.

It's a pretty sad shift from flying 20-30 years ago, and probably a lot of folks here are too young to have even experienced flying when it was a totally different experience. Back then it actually was treated so much better; large seats, in-flight meals, friendly stewardesses and pilots, etc. Now...it's like a bus ride crammed in like sardines. And unfortunately the behind the scenes stuff sounds like it's just as bad as what we see.

[Rennadrel]

Good thing in Canada we don't do that sort of thing.

[lockedout]

So what you're saying is: speaking English is a requirement of being a mechanic? Guess people in all those non-English speaking countries are pretty screwed.

I would probably be more concerned about them not being FAA certified. Of course you overlooked that part and went staight for the non english speaking part. Typical MMOC.

"In the last decade, most of the big U.S. airlines have shifted major maintenance work to places like El Salvador, Mexico, and China, where few mechanics are F.A.A. certified and inspections have no teeth."

[Deleted]

+1 for writing skills.
Seriously, I'm not being sarcastic. Phrasing and word usage in your post was really good!

But it's also incredibly sad that this is what they do.

Click the link, he copy/pasted the first half of the article. :P

[Kapadons]

In this case, not being able to read or speak English is an increase in risk. These aren't local airlines; the repair manuals they provide are in English. Not following the manual while repairing isn't just one of those things you can write off as 'not likely".

Wait, so when I buy a new case for my phone the directions and warranty info come in English, Spanish, French, mandarin, and German but they couldn't possible have a manual printed in another language ?

Also, 30000 commercial flights in the US every day, how many have crashed in the last decade ? It seems the stats show this is a non issue.

[Ealyssa]

So what you're saying is: speaking English is a requirement of being a mechanic? Guess people in all those non-English speaking countries are pretty screwed.

Should tell everyone flying on an airbus that the people who built the plane don't speak english for the most part.

[Gheld]

Well, the upshot is that we only need ~2 plane crashes from faulty overseas maintenance for the FAA to bring down the hammer.

You need around two, because in the past the FAA has sometimes looked the other way or made informal agreements with airlines to not fix a problem the first time around. The second crash reveals this, and the resulting fallout forces the FAA to act.

Or you can just not fly on shitty domestic flights.

Edit: And this kind of crash would create a huge uproar, if only because the politics involved (outsourcing of jobs) is already a hot issue.

I love that it only takes a few hundred people to die to prompt change.

[Felnoire]

Seeing as poor maintenance has caused a few crashes, the FAA already have regulations implemented on how to ensure the standards are maintained. So whether or not they receive the bulk of their maintenance abroad isn't an issue beyond the employment levels of your own country's aircraft engineers. All those planes still need to meet the air worthiness directives that had been altered time and again as new issues are discovered. From the time between replacements the jack on the tail wing, to how best to check for cracks caused by chlorine soaked cork within propellers on prop planes. So what it comes down to, is do you trust that your authorities are doing their job to ensure those inspections actually take place and are willing to listen to investigators when they suggest a new air worthiness directive due to a newly discovered problem? I'd say I am confident they are, it's their job and well I usually expect people to do their job.

[Forogil]

It really shows the massive discrepancy in labor costs when they can move an entire plane out of the country rather than fix it here. That can't be cheap.

Well, an entire plane isn't that odd - when salmons caught and eaten in the US are filleted in China:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/22/op...fish.html?_r=0

However, there is not only labor cost, but also the cost of not using the plane during the time it is sent out of country.

[Garnier Fructis]

Wait, so when I buy a new case for my phone the directions and warranty info come in English, Spanish, French, mandarin, and German but they couldn't possible have a manual printed in another language ?

Also, 30000 commercial flights in the US every day, how many have crashed in the last decade ? It seems the stats show this is a non issue.

Very few airlines bother to translate their manuals to the local language.

And there are few crashes precisely because every time one happens, the FAA treats it as a big fucking deal and makes as many changes as possible. Crashes due to poor maintenance are not something you just write off as statistically unlikely and therefore acceptable. Even if only 1 plane crashes every other year due to maintenance, then it's unacceptable.

[enragedgorilla]

Not American crews/shops maintaining the planes does not = a problem as long as the plane meets FAA requirements.
It doesn't matter if the "instruction manual" is in English either.

I recall a saying in the military ...that I find , sort of applies here.
Your plane was designed by people with Phd.'s
It Is operated by guys with bachelor degrees/ Masters degrees.
It is maintained by guys with HS educations...or GED's.

A company has to deal with Union Labor here in the states and the FAA.
Overseas/foreign shops ...they only have to deal with FAA regs.
The point of a company is to make money in any way it can where it is "legal".
i do not like jobs going overseas, however it is the way things are and have been for ..decades, I do not see it changing anytime soon.

If you have an issue with it , I suggest...don't buy into capitalism, Do not fly on airlines that use "farmed out shops". and make sure the ones that ARE domestic...are Union Shops..to make sure the teams are "getting a fair share".
That is all I can think of to "help " the OP.

[Garnier Fructis]

Not American crews/shops maintaining the planes does not = a problem as long as the plane meets FAA requirements.
It doesn't matter if the "instruction manual" is in English either.

It's enough of a concern that the FAA has been investigating it.

[Phookah]

oh no, the planes that were probably built by a foreign country were maintained by a foreign country too? LORDY LORDY

[edw]

No need for the wall of text my friend ...

Go here http://www.independenttraveler.com/t...-is-air-travel

Flying is still one of the safest transports to date, so it's dose not matter who dose that maintenance, you have a way bigger chance of getting hit by a car then crashing in a airplane.

A plane is inspected every time it takes off ...

[Xargoth6634]

+1 for writing skills.
Seriously, I'm not being sarcastic. Phrasing and word usage in your post was really good!

But it's also incredibly sad that this is what they do.

OP didn't write it, he copied and pasted from the article without using quotation marks. Apparently he never attended a school that emphasized the fact that plagiarism is wrong.

[Cyi]

Not long ago I was waiting for a domestic flight in a departure lounge at one of the crumbling midcentury sheds that pass for an American airport these days. There were delays, as we’ve all come to expect, and then the delays turned into something more ominous. The airplane I was waiting for had a serious maintenance issue, beyond the ability of a man in an orange vest to address. The entire airplane would have to be taken away for servicing and another brought to the gate in its place. This would take a while. Those of us in the departure lounge settled in for what we suspected might be hours. From the window I watched the ground crew unload the bags from the original airplane. When the new one arrived, the crew pumped the fuel, loaded the bags, and stocked the galley. It was a scene I’d witnessed countless times. Soon we would board and be on the way to our destinations.

As for the first airplane, the one with the maintenance problem—what was its destination going to be? When you have time on your hands, you begin to wonder about things like this. My own assumption, as yours might have been, was that the aircraft would be towed to a nearby hangar for a stopgap repair and then flown to a central maintenance facility run by the airline somewhere in the U.S. Or maybe there was one right here at the airport. In any case, if it needed a major overhaul, presumably it would be performed by the airline’s staff of trained professionals. If Apple feels it needs a “Genius Bar” at its stores to deal with hardware and software that cost a few hundred dollars, an airline must have something equivalent to safeguard an airplane worth a few hundred million.

About this I would be wrong—as wrong as it is possible to be. Over the past decade, nearly all large U.S. airlines have shifted heavy maintenance work on their airplanes to repair shops thousands of miles away, in developing countries, where the mechanics who take the planes apart (completely) and put them back together (or almost) may not even be able to read or speak English. US Airways and Southwest fly planes to a maintenance facility in El Salvador. Delta sends planes to Mexico. United uses a shop in China. American still does much of its most intensive maintenance in-house in the U.S., but that is likely to change in the aftermath of the company’s merger with US Airways.

The airlines are shipping this maintenance work offshore for the reason you’d expect: to cut labor costs. Mechanics in El Salvador, Mexico, China, and elsewhere earn a fraction of what mechanics in the U.S. do. In part because of this offshoring, the number of maintenance jobs at U.S. carriers has plummeted, from 72,000 in the year 2000 to fewer than 50,000 today. But the issue isn’t just jobs. A century ago, Upton Sinclair wrote his novel The Jungle to call attention to the plight of workers in the slaughterhouses, but what really got people upset was learning how unsafe their meat was. Safety is an issue here, too. The Federal Aviation Administration is supposed to be inspecting all the overseas facilities that do maintenance for airlines—just as it is supposed to inspect those in America. But the F.A.A. no longer has the money or the manpower to do this.

One of the fastest-growing of the offshore repair sites is on the perimeter of El Salvador’s Monseñor Óscar Arnulfo Romero International Airport. Named for the archbishop who was assassinated during Mass in 1980, the airport has become a busy hub, owing largely to a steady influx of foreign jetliners needing maintenance and repair. Jets flying the insignia of US Airways, Southwest, Jet Blue, and many smaller American carriers are a common sight as they touch down and taxi to the Aeroman complex at the edge of the field.

http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/...sturbing-truth

As a commercial pilot myself and someone who flies for a living, there is no basis for concern simply because work is being done in other countries. Remember that the US isn't the sole purchaser of said aircraft so it would be obvious that work is done on aircraft all over the world.

In regards to the progressive maintenance schedules and the repairs done during them, they are all extremely detailed and step by step, easily negating the need for English as the primary language.

In regard to entry level pilot pay, ha ha, yeah it's crap. Nothing like spending 100k on your ratings just to get paid minimum wage right out of the gate. At the end of the day though, at least in regards to the mechanics and cost reasons to ship overseas, this fault can be blamed heavily on the unions that simply got to greedy and forced the labor costs so high. Same thing is happening in all industry. You add in NAFTA and the like and you quickly get to a point where it is far cheaper to have the work done elsewhere.

[Unionoob]

Very few airlines bother to translate their manuals to the local language.

And there are few crashes precisely because every time one happens, the FAA treats it as a big fucking deal and makes as many changes as possible. Crashes due to poor maintenance are not something you just write off as statistically unlikely and therefore acceptable. Even if only 1 plane crashes every other year due to maintenance, then it's unacceptable.

I am wondering. Are manuals really made by Airlines or actually by companies which make Airplanes like Boeing, Airbus or Bombardier? And if everything is only in English then how can someone outside English speaking regions able to operate those airplanes?