I read with some interest that the Professional Aviation Maintenance Association is calling for additional maintenance training requirements for maintenance technicians and linked the problems to three accidents as examples of maintenance training issues. I could be pessimistic here in thinking that PAMA is trying to use some deflection tactics from the professional flying fraternity. It is not always the maintenance technician who is at fault. Does the maintenance technician have duty hours/times rigidly enforced as the professional flying fraternity enforces on the rest of the public? Maintenance technicians are an expendable commodity in the overall scheme of things to be hired and fired at the whim of the shareholder, as the shareholder must make his profit per year.

I therefore suggest that this idea, however grandiose and necessary it may be, would never be employed on a large scale as the additional training costs would be prohibitive to say the least. The individual organization concerned would have to undertake this style of training much more seriously and would have to provide the maintenance arm of the organization more money and time to conduct and complete the required training. Civil Aviation Regulation 214 of the Civil Aviation Safety Regulations here in Australia already requires aviation organizations to provide additional training on new equipment, but it requires time to conduct and complete. This is something that companies are reluctant to do on a very large scale. Schedules and timetables must be met to keep the authority (CASA and FAA) off the organization’s tail.

To move blame away from one area onto another could not be justified properly as there are many other things that come together to make life interesting for all those who embark on their journey throughout the aviation world. Company commitments, schedules, weather factors, home-life pressures, health and well being of the individual, etc. all play a part in the overall operation of an organization and it doesn’t take much for something to fail and go wrong in a very large and catastrophic way as I think we all know and appreciate. For an organization to function smoothly I would therefore suggest there needs to be a large dose of diplomacy, understanding, tolerance and esprit-de-corps utilized across all levels in an organization from CEO level to lowest-salaried person on the books.

This is a universal situation and not just specific to the U.S. aviation industry; it is endemic throughout the world, although some companies are suppressing the negatives more effectively than others and therefore operating more fluently and it could be argued, more profitably.

Name and address withheld.

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