There is a current and growing shortage of
experienced aircraft maintenance technicians. With the shortage
of technicians and the increase of paperwork demands, time
for clerical duties competes with time needed to adequately
research aircraft problems. More and more technicians find
themselves forced to find a quick fix, in lieu of thorough
troubleshooting due to available manpower, aggressive flight
schedules, and time constraints.
Maintaining accurate documentation of aircraft maintenance and logbooks is a
Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) requirement. Important to note is that
the FAA requires some documents to be kept, while consultants, brokers,
lawyers, insurers, investigators, etc., expect a more complete set to meet
their independent standards. FBO's as well as every mechanic that works on an
aircraft are generating paperwork for an aircraft and there is no
standardization on record-keeping.
Most flight departments interpret and comply with the record-keeping FAR's
using their own methods. The daily compliance of this task can be
overwhelming and frustrating. Knowing what records, how long to retain them,
and how to document maintenance discrepancies is left to interpretation of
the law and individual flight department procedure. Each logbook page
contains valuable information to assist in troubleshooting maintenance issues
by building a history of past problems. This data can connect past problems
to solutions. Used to identify recurrent problems and aid in future decision
making, this data is also employed in investigations to determine cause and
to aid, warn, and ultimately prevent incidents.
The large volume of paperwork generated by aircraft maintenance along with
the cumbersome task of reviewing these documents, leaves most flight
departments with an inefficient library of critical, FAA required aircraft
records. This library is also directly related to the value of the aircraft.
Proper maintenance of records is essential to the lives onboard, the lives
below, and the resale of the aircraft.
