Originally Posted By Darkbeer Sorry, but the Topic title is just to short... "Should Commercial Airline Mechanics be able to read the Maintenance Manuals for the planes they are working on?" <a href="http://www.wfaa.com/sharedcontent/dws/wfaa/localnews/investigates/stories/wfaa090515-_lj_harris.7a4a7d4.html" target="_blank">http://www.wfaa.com/sharedcont...7d4.html</a>\ First off, before the quote, some airlines, such as Southwest and American do require EACH person to be able to read the manuals... >>News 8 has recently revealed serious flaws in the way the FAA licenses mechanics who fix planes. There is evidence of years of problems in testing these mechanics. There is also evidence that hundreds of mechanics with questionable licenses are working on aircraft in Texas. Now there is evidence of repair facilities hiring low-wage mechanics who can't read English. Twenty-one people were killed when U.S. Airways Express Flight 5481 crashed in Charlotte, North Carolina in 2003. The plane went wildly out of control on takeoff. One reason for the crash, investigators found, was that mechanics incorrectly connected the cables to some of the plane's control surfaces in the repair shop. The FAA was cited for improper oversight of the repair process. Repairing airplanes is a complicated business. Airplanes have many manuals. Typically, when mechanics repair a part, they open the manual, consult the book, and make the repair step-by-step, as if it were a recipe book. They make a list of every action they take, so the next person to fix the plane (as well as the people who fly it) will know exactly what has been done. If mechanics don't speak English, the international language of aviation, they can't read the manual and they can't record their activities. There are more than 236 FAA-certified aircraft repair stations in Texas, according to the FAA's Web site. News 8 has learned that hundreds of the mechanics working in those shops do not speak English and are unable to read repair manuals for today's sophisticated aircraft. <<
Originally Posted By SuperDry <<< News 8 discovered that mechanics at one licensing center in San Antonio were being tested in Spanish as late as last fall. The FAA ultimately shut the facility down. >>> So, this is an ongoing safety issue, known to the FAA, yet it went on for years under the Bush administration? I guess they cared more about the profits of the airline repair companies than the safety of passengers. Now thankfully with Obama in the White House, the errant Spanish-speaking licensing center in San Antonio is shut down and airline mechanics in Texas will need to know English in order to get their repair license.
Originally Posted By Mr X Thank goodness we have someone responsible in the White House for a change!
