Again and again when we research the NTSB accident reports for the magazine’s Used Aircraft Guide feature, we find wrecks that might have been avoided if it weren’t for maintenance errors. The causes are all over the place—from improperly installed components on engines to mistakes made when working on the airframe and control surfaces. For certain, the risks are much higher on flights fresh out of maintenance.
It’s far from a new problem. Intended as another layer of backstop, the FAA in 2018 required the higher end of the market (Part 121 ops) to have a Safety Management System, or SMS, in place. It’s an FAA requirement worth watching for the rest of us. In FAA language, SMS is in part “a program that promotes a defined structure and a learning culture within an aviation organization that continually seeks and analyzes information, then turns that information into action that eliminates or mitigates safety risks before they become unwanted events.” That’s a lot of words (and extra work for the operator) for essentially developing a quality program intended to reduce mistakes, and it will trickle down to Part 135 and Part 91 (for-hire) ops soon, though some Part 135 operations already have a similar concept in place. FAA repair stations also have similar quality procedures in the ops specs, but many plain-vanilla repair shops might not.
I recently talked shop with Mike Bradley, a veteran aircraft maintenance expert who is currently a senior loss control advisor for the insurance company AssuredPartners, where we finished each other’s sentences when it came to maintenance errors, why they continue to happen and why shops—big and small—can be safer by incorporating an SMS protocol in day-to-day ops. But even before that, it starts with the aircraft owner taking command of the maintenance process. While not an insurance guy, but being associated with an insurance company, Bradley has a good handle on what goes wrong and how SMS (which can lean heavily toward maintenance procedures and accountability) might help reduce insurance claims, cut premiums and reduce wrecks.
He pointed out that even for small shops on a shoestring budget, SMS can be scalable to best fit the size and scope of the operation, even if SMS isn’t required. “It’s all about having a second set of eyes (or a second day for a fresh look) for safety-sensitive tasks, whether it’s an engine change or flight control work,” Bradley pointed out. He’s also vocal about the negative aspect of working on your own aircraft when it comes to major tasks. “Do your tire swaps and do your oil changes, but let someone else do the annual inspections,” he said, pointing out that this is a tough sell for aircraft owners trying to save money. As for finding shops that have the best backstop and SMS-like practices in place, it’s really all about knowing who will be working on your aircraft. Part of the breakdown on the shop level is a lack of oversight on the work of apprentices and inexperienced mechanics. Using an SMS approach can add a layer of oversight that might not exist, potentially catching mistakes before the owner flies the aircraft away.
“If I was looking for a maintenance organization, I’d find one with a general operations manual or something similar that the shop has in writing that provides policies and procedures for every task they do on a daily basis,” Bradley told me, also pointing out that the opposite of that is dangerous so-called tribal knowledge. These are shops with high turnovers and ones that don’t hold techs accountable for what they do on the shop floor. On the other hand, it’s one thing to have a manual or list of safety-specific procedures in place and another thing to actually use them.
We’ll look at maintenance-related accident statistics and dive deeper into the evolving SMS concept with the smaller Part 91 aircraft owner in mind in an upcoming report in Aviation Consumer.
