The Fear in Aviation Maintenance
Aircraft maintenance is arguably one of the best managed maintenance practices across different industries. Aircraft maintenance operations in the US are usually closely monitored by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) which ensures that the maintenance practices are done in a proper manner. Despite this oversight, maintenance errors still occur and have been, on many occasions, stated as the main cause of aircraft accidents. Knowledge of the factors that contribute to maintenance errors and therefore aircraft accidents can go a long way in enabling the industry regulars to draft precautionary measures and safety protocols to reduce the occurrence of these accidents.
I. Factors contributing to maintenance errors
Human factors, management factors, and structure factors are the most common factors that contribute to errors during the maintenance of aircraft (Stolzer, Halford & Goglia, 2012). Of the three factors, human factors account for the majority maintenance errors and therefore majority of aircraft accidents. There are numerous factors that can directly or indirectly contribute to human factors in maintenance errors can be categorized into the three groups of individual factors, job factors and organizational factors. Individual factors are those capabilities and attributes of an individual that may cause the individual to commit an error. These factors include their habits, personal attitudes, skills, personalities and their competence. For instance, if a maintenance officer has the habit of not paying close attention to detail, the officer may overlook a crucial maintenance steps that may later cause the aircraft to crash. Job factors that cause human maintenance errors are the workplace requirements that may not match the capabilities of the individuals tasked with aircraft maintenance. Job factors include