2009-11 · NASA ASRS report 863176
A Maintenance Controller and a Mechanic report about a loose right wing jack pad found by a pilot on a post flight walk-around of a Saab 340B aircraft. Pilot later removed the jack pad; made logbook entry and signed-off the logbook.
Below is an account of events pertaining to a Saab 340B aircraft; early afternoon. Pilot of Saab 340 called Maintenance upon completion of post flight inspection of aircraft he flew in; and noticed that the right-hand wing jack pad adapter was loosely attached to the wing. He informed me he did not have an issue with removing the pad. I informed him to give me a good contact number so I could call him back with some options.I contacted outstation Maintenance; but received no answer. I discussed it with my Supervisor and he informed me that if the pilot was 'OK' with the procedure; to talk him through it. I pulled up an Illustrated Parts Catalog (IPC) reference and Aircraft Maintenance Manual (AMM) reference to give to the pilot. The pilot contacted me before I was able to get back to him and informed me that he had already removed the jack pad. The pilot made an entry just to be on the safe side and he contacted me to sign off the corrective action that the pad was removed.Contributory factors are: Maintenance did not follow up on work done prior to flight out; crew did not perform thorough preflight; Maintenance Control Supervisor advised incorrectly; and the Maintenance Controller did not follow company procedures for log entries.I informed Maintenance Control that pilots cannot sign-off corrective actions; and in the future to call out Maintenance.Read the General Maintenance Manual (GMM). Know it and then read it again; it is always changing. Don't take your Supervisor's word for it; research; research; research.
Two of us on Third shift had been assigned to repack the lower portion of the nose strut of a Saab 340B because of a fluid leak. The aircraft needed to be on jacks during this procedure. It was around shift change time when we were nearing completion and my helper needed to leave; but I said I could stay to finish it up and take it to the gate if needed. Another third shifter also stayed late to take the place of my helper and help finish up. At this point (today; a month later); I'm not entirely sure who it was that stayed late to help finish and who the other person on jacks was to help bring the plane down off jacks. But anyway; we brought it down off the jacks with me on the left main (gear) or the nose. I believe I saw all the jack pads removed and placed on the jacks as they were taken to the storage area. In hind sight; I may not have been quite as attentive as I thought in making sure that all the jack pads were off the aircraft. I thought the level of experience and competency was sufficient for this Task at the time.The Captain removed the jack pad. Maybe flag the jack pads; or mark them so as to be more conspicuous. Being more attentive to what the individual operating the jack is doing. Adding a statement and/or step in the job card to remove the jack pads.
Source: NASA Aviation Safety Reporting System (public domain). Reports are voluntary submissions and are not verified by NASA.
Loading the flight search…
Pick an aircraft model — Boeing 737, Airbus A320, A380, Boeing 787 Dreamliner and more — enter your origin airport, and FlightFinder shows every route that plane flies from there with live fares.
We support Boeing 737/747/757/767/777/787, the full Airbus A220/A319/A320/A321/A330/A340/A350/A380 family, Embraer E170/E175/E190/E195, Bombardier CRJ and Dash 8, and the ATR 42/72 turboprops.
Search and schedules are free. Pro ($4.99/month, $39/year, or $99 one-time lifetime) unlocks the enriched flight card — on-time stats, CO₂ per passenger, amenities, live gate & weather — plus My Trips with push alerts.
Live schedules come from Amadeus, AeroDataBox and Travelpayouts. Observed routes (which aircraft actually flew a given city pair) are crowdsourced from adsb.lol ADS-B data under the Open Database License.