Evaluation of Aircraft Maintenance Documents in Terms of Flight Safety and Human Factors

Abstract

Aircraft maintenance activities are one of the most essential factors in maintaining flight operations safely and effectively. Properly maintained maintenance activities help ensure the safety of people and aircrafts, as well as control costs. Maintenance activities are carried out by maintenance technicians with the necessary competence and training in areas such as hangars, aprons and workshops. The maintenance system is responsible for ensuring the safety and reliability of the transportation system along with the human-machine interaction. It is also a system that contains multiple interactive components. Considering its contribution to flight safety, aircraft maintenance technicians are considered as one of the most critical stakeholders of the system. Maintenance technicians must also use maintenance documents and necessary operational procedures when performing maintenance activities with human factors such as stress and workload, time pressure, and the need for improved situational awareness, in all weather conditions, before, during and after flight operations. While maintenance technicians are performing their duties, they have to act according to the maintenance documents created in accordance with international standards. The design of maintenance documents and errors in implementing the maintenance tasks of maintenance technicians have the potential to adversely affect flight operations. Based on this importance, in the study, the extent to which the current structure of aircraft maintenance documents is appropriate to the working conditions of maintenance technicians and its effects on aviation safety, qualitative research methods and stakeholder views were tried to be examined. Individual interviews and focus group practices were held with 74 participants, consisting of maintenance technicians, technical trainers and students with maintenance training. By analyzing the contributions provided by the participants, it was tried to identify the negative aspects of aircraft maintenance documents in terms of human factors, safety, suitability for maintenance operations and cost, and to propose solutions on the subject. As stated in the analysis of the study, the participants answered that by improving and interacting with maintenance documents considering human factors, maintenance technicians, especially aviation safety, can provide significant benefits to the working conditions and thus to organizations and authorities