FAA Still Reviewing 737 Wing Flaps

1.

Not knowing what happened, I am left to speculate on a series of simmilar events that occured with a \"Start-Up\" airline in Western Canada on several of their old 737-200\'s. The operator had a series of asymetric flap cut-outs due to gearbox failures where the gearboxes and were unable to determine the cause of the problem. During a heavy letter check at a contracted heavy maintenance facility (MRO) that the Start-Up operator used, and where I was employed, I was at one point tasked with servicing the entire set of flap drive system geaboxes from one of the operators\'aircraft. I found a discrepancy with the Operator created and supplied work cards (one for each gearbox, all assigned a different work card number based on angle) which when laid side by side, called out for two of the gearboxes in the wings to be serviced twice. This would mean that two of the gearboxes in the wings would not be serviced at all. I brought the discrepancy and the work cards in question to my superior and informed him of the differences between the work cards and Boeings\' Maintenance Manual requirements for these gearboxes during this check. I was pointedly told \"just do what the damn card says and don\'t use your head - it will only get you into trouble. So if it as already called up and has been done, just sign for it!\". Well, since I had dilligently checked the cards against the micro-film copy of the up to date Boeing MM the MRO facility had and found out that all the gearboxes required servicing at this check. I dis-assembled the gearboxes called on the non-suspect cards to clean and flush them for re-greasing and found them to be in decent shape, just needing cleaning and greasing. However when I opened one of the gearboxes (against the orders of my supervisor) called up on the suspect work cards I found that the grease inside it was so badly dried out and ancient that it may as well have been fired clay. I pried out chunks of hardened grease and gained access to the gears inside. Once I got to the gears, I found the gears, actuator shaft and the housing were all badly worn and nothing could be salvaged, let alone re-used. I approached my supervisor with my findings and was degraded and made to look like a fool in front of about 30 other technicians and mechanics working in the area as he berated me for going against his \"Direct Instructions\" and \"servicing the gearboxes that were not called up\". At this point I politely told my supervisor \"where he could go\" and sought the operator\'s maintenance representative to bring his attention to my findings. When I finally located the the tech rep and reported my discovery and the reasons why I had done what I had done he was aghast. Immediately he came over to my work bench and saw the non airworthy gearbox and was shocked at the state of its\' innards. Asking for me to loan him some tools he immediately dis-assembled the remaining untouched gearbox to discover it in the same neglected state, \"not airwothy\" and not repairable. These two gearboxes were the left and right side gearboxes that change the flap drive angle where the wing bends in the are of the engine pylon. Asking to see my work cards and the print out I had from the Boeing MM the operators tech rep immediately got on the phone to his maintenance control department in Calgary. At about this point my supervisor came over and in short order I was having my butt chewed off for bringing the operator\'s tech rep in on this. The operators tech rep intterupted the chewing out. He said in quite pointed terms that if it wasn\'t for my using my brains and refusing to follow the bad directions of my superior, that his airline would not have found out the reason for their string of asymetric flap indications and split flap landings.

Apparently, when the work cards the airline / operator generatod for their entire maintenance operation were created the system used was microsoft word and everything was transcribed directly from the Boeing MM to the operator\'s task cards. The contents of the work cards / task cards were all reviewed before they were finalised for accuracy against the Boeing master manuals and the last thing was to use the Micrsoft spell checker to automaticaly correct any spelling errors. The problem with the work cards was created during this final step when the gearbox angles ( in numerical form) were auto corrected to what the Microsoft spell checker thought they should be. ie, 90 degrees and 120 degrees but not 137 degrees since 137 degrees was not in the program\'s \"dictionary\". So the task cards were wrong from day 1 and these aircraft had flown thousands of hours since then without having the gearboxes in question serviced and it was no wonder the affected gearboxes had never ever been greased!


Anyone being issued a work / task card for these gearboxes would see that they were either \"Not due\" and signed as such or had already been signed for by somone else even if they were not actually done if people like my supervisor had his way. I felt relieved to have taken a load of heat from my supervisor for having done what I felt was the right thing to do. I solved a problem that had been causing a lot of problems that no one could figure out the reasons for. Just because the paperwork is signed off and the work cards are done doesn\'t mean that the job is 100%. To ensure a 100% thorough job it also takes well trained and dedicated maintenance personnel and their support staff with a thorough understanding of their jobs to keep the aluminum overcast from raining.

Perhaps the answer to this problem is also \"in the cards\"