What's happening?
Several years ago, I was the assistant manager at my beloved aircraft shop. My co workers and myself of this small three man shop was "When an airplane leaves this shop, we don't want it back until its next scheduled service." In other words, when a specific job was perfomed, that job was done right.
If a machine came in that had bad cylinder compression, wobbly propeller, loose joints, blue stains (fuel) anywhere, ect, that plane would be subject to a complete "on the house" inspection and the owner would be informed of the discoveries.
One plane came in and I swear to God, despite the fact it had gone through an annual inspection we found the vertical stabilizer wobling at least one inch to either side of its correct point!!!!
While there I (with very little help from others) rebuilt a little Cessna 150 from being a true hanger queen, to being a quite capable trainer.
I eventually got laid off from that job, due to my pay having to be so high. A bogus reason, and one that is illeagal, but unfortunately I was unaware that it was illeagal.
Now, several years later I am hearing very disturbing reports in the area of Aircraft maintanence. A couple of weeks ago, a very gruesome event happened occured at a local airport. To put it simply the two things involved were a revolving propeller of an idleing engine, and an oblivious person not respecting the arc of that prop. Now one of the requirements with prop strikes are that the engine and propeller must be torn down and inspected for any damage. This did not happen. Instead not two hours later, the same plane, with the same pilot that just shredded a person, departs Hayward airport...and promptly ends up in the golf course at the end of the runway. No injuries, but the plane was pretty badly bent up (actually the wings were sheared off at the roots).
My question. Why the hell was this plane even allowed back into the air after a serious accident involving a propeller and a human being? What FAA numbskull dropped the ball on this one?
*Out of time, Have to return to this later.*
If a machine came in that had bad cylinder compression, wobbly propeller, loose joints, blue stains (fuel) anywhere, ect, that plane would be subject to a complete "on the house" inspection and the owner would be informed of the discoveries.
One plane came in and I swear to God, despite the fact it had gone through an annual inspection we found the vertical stabilizer wobling at least one inch to either side of its correct point!!!!
While there I (with very little help from others) rebuilt a little Cessna 150 from being a true hanger queen, to being a quite capable trainer.
I eventually got laid off from that job, due to my pay having to be so high. A bogus reason, and one that is illeagal, but unfortunately I was unaware that it was illeagal.
Now, several years later I am hearing very disturbing reports in the area of Aircraft maintanence. A couple of weeks ago, a very gruesome event happened occured at a local airport. To put it simply the two things involved were a revolving propeller of an idleing engine, and an oblivious person not respecting the arc of that prop. Now one of the requirements with prop strikes are that the engine and propeller must be torn down and inspected for any damage. This did not happen. Instead not two hours later, the same plane, with the same pilot that just shredded a person, departs Hayward airport...and promptly ends up in the golf course at the end of the runway. No injuries, but the plane was pretty badly bent up (actually the wings were sheared off at the roots).
My question. Why the hell was this plane even allowed back into the air after a serious accident involving a propeller and a human being? What FAA numbskull dropped the ball on this one?
*Out of time, Have to return to this later.*