Maintenance

The unintended failure to carry out a maintenance task in accordance with the requirements of that task and/or not working in accordance with the principles of good maintenance practice

Aviation industry studies have found that the origin of as many as 20% of all in-flight engine shutdowns can be traced to maintenance error.

Typical maintenance errors include:

For installation errors on engines, one specific study found the following types of error:

The circumstances in which maintenance error occurs are the focus of human factors methodology

Analysis of maintenance error data collected by a group of UK Maintenance Organisations found that when the type of error was classified, four categories accounted for 78% of the errors. These were:

  1. Installation error – 39%
  2. Inattention (damage) – 16%
  3. Poor inspection standards – 12%
  4. Approved data not followed – 11%