Aviation Maintenance Practices, Regulations and Human Factors
Maintenance practice questions test the licence boundary: what an AME may certify, which documents make a helicopter airworthy, and how human factors cause real errors.
Rules and records
In New Zealand, Part 66 sets AME licence categories and type ratings; Part 43 sets general maintenance rules and release requirements; Part 145 organisations hold maintenance approvals. A certificate of release to service is issued only after the required maintenance has been performed and recorded, with correct references to manuals, ADs and any approved data. Airworthiness directives are mandatory; service bulletins are not unless made mandatory by an AD or the operator's requirements. Components need an authorised release certificate (Form 1). Maintenance records must be legible, permanent and traceable to the task and person.
Human factors
The Dirty Dozen (fatigue, complacency, pressure, distraction, lack of resources, lack of assertiveness, stress, lack of awareness, norms, lack of communication, lack of teamwork, lack of knowledge) describes error precursors. Reason's Swiss cheese model separates latent organisational weaknesses from active errors; SHELL models the interface between software, hardware, environment and liveware. Just-culture reporting depends on separating error from wilful violation.
Worked example
An AME completes a 100-hour inspection and signs the CRS, then finds an unembodied AD in the aircraft folder. Reasoning: the CRS certifies airworthiness at release; an unembodied mandatory AD means the aircraft was not airworthy, so the release must be withdrawn or corrected, the AD embodied and recorded, and the occurrence reported.
Traps
- Treating all service bulletins as mandatory.
- Signing for work you did not perform or inspect.
- Relying on memory instead of current manual revision.