Aircraft Maintenance and

Quality

南一蓝（ 165152031603 ）
安冰（ 165152031547 ）
音梦（ 165152031546 ）

GROUP 2
 Topics of Discussion
 What is Maintenance?
 Why Maintenance is important?
 Types of maintenance
 Classification of maintenance problems
and examples of failed maintenance
crashes
 Types of aircraft checks and their
intervals
 Maintenance costs
 What is Maintenance?
According to the FAA, maintenance means the
inspection, overhaul, repair, upkeep and
preservation of an aircraft and engine, including
the replacement of parts.
Why Maintenance is important?
 Physical Integrity - To keep the aircraft in good working order to
minimize disruptions and downtimes

 Risk Management – To keep the aircraft in a state of good repair for

crew and passenger safety

 Aesthetic Preservation – To keep the aircraft from deteriorating

in appearance and becoming unsightly

 Responsible Stewardship – To ensure that the aircraft achieves

it’s full potential service life

 Duty to Mitigate – To prevent unnecessary damage to the aircraft

that might result in it’s premature failure
 Types of Maintenance
 Breakdown(Corrective)
maintenance
 Preventive maintenance
 Predictive
(Condition
Based) maintenance
 Periodic maintenance
 Total Productive

maintenance
 Breakdown Maintenance
Involves performing maintenance activities after a machine
breakdown or malfunction has occurred and then must be
repaired on an emergency or priority basis.

Advantages Disadvantages
Lower Startup Cost Unpredictability
Limited personnel
Equipment not maximized
requirement

Reduced maintenance costs Indirect costs

Potentially increased
margins
 Preventive Maintenance
Preventive maintenance (or preventative maintenance) is
maintenance that is regularly performed on a piece of equipment to
lessen the likelihood of it failing. It is performed while the
equipment is still working so that it does not break down
unexpectedly.
Advantages Disadvantages
Risk of damage when
Increases asset life span
conducting unneeded
maintenance
Cost effective Labor intensive
Saves energy and
resources
Efficient productivity
Reduces unplanned
downtime
 Predictive Maintenance
Predictive maintenance is maintenance that monitors the
performance and condition of equipment during normal operation to
reduce the likelihood of failures.
Advantages Disadvantages

Increases asset life cycle Increased staff training for

analyzing data
Downtime only before Saving not readily visible
unavoidable failure without a baseline/history
Improved safety and Need for condition
environment monitoring equipment
Energy savings
Predicts when failure will
occur using data
Decreased cost of labor
 Periodic Maintenance
Involves activities being carried out regularly (according to
predetermined schedule) to maintain the condition or operational
state of particular equipment, machinery or systems.

Total Productive Maintenance

Total Productive Maintenance is a maintenance philosophy that
requires the total participation of the workforce. TPM incorporates
the skills of all employees and focuses on improving the overall
effectiveness of the maintenance process by eliminating the waste
of time and resources. TPM is a concept that is most easily applied
to a manufacturing facility.
Nature of Maintenance Problems

General Classification of maintenance

problems:
1) Mechanical Failure
 Worn out bearings and other moving parts
 Fatigue of machine members
 Creep of material at high temperatures
 Excessive forced vibration, misalignments etc.
2) Thermal Failure
 Overheating of the component Pane cracks in
a cabin window
 Lack of lubrication on Southwest
 Inadequate cooling flight 957
 Electrical Insulation failure

3) Chemical Failure
 Highly corrosive fluids containing abrasive particles
 Failure of protective linings like glass, rubber etc.

Thermal failure in electronic

components Cockpit fire shatters windshield on
a Boeing 757
Crashes due to failed aircraft maintenance
Japan Airlines Flight 123, which
took off without a vertical
stabilizer in 1985. It crashed 32
minutes after takeoff. A double
plate on the rear bulkhead of
the plane had been improperly
repaired causing the rapid
decompression that ripped off a
large portion of the tail and
caused the loss of hydraulic
controls to the entire plane.
Chalk’s Flight 101 in December
2005. The plane crashed shortly
after takeoff, killing everyone on
board. The cause was traced
back to metal fatigue in the right
wing and a crack in the plane’s
wing that was discovered but
never properly fixed.

Missing
vertical
stabilizer
Chalk’s flight 101 lost it’s right
wing
 Alaska Airlines Flight 261, which
nose-dived into the Pacific Ocean
during a flight from Mexico to
Seattle in 2000. Everyone aboard
the McDonnell Douglas MD-83 was
killed, and investigators later
determined the cause to be the
started to fill the cabin. Once the DC-
jammed the horizontal stabilizer
due to insufficient lubrication of the
jackscrew assembly by airline
employees during preventive
maintenance.
Damaged threading on
jackscrew
Air Canada Flight 797. An in-flight
fire started in and around the rear
lavatory of the aircraft. The
lavatory's circuit breakers had
tripped. The captain's initial attempt
to reset the circuit breakers was
unsuccessful. Thick black smoke
9 landed at Cincinnati, doors and
emergency exits were opened which
caused the cabin to erupt in a flash
fire. Of the 46 people aboard, 23
died.
 Miami ValuJet Flight 592. The
McDonnell Douglas DC-9 crashed
about 10 mins after taking off as a
result of the chemical oxygen
generators that had been illegally
packaged by SabreTech, the airline's
maintenance contractor. A bump
apparently set one off, and the
resulting heat started a fire, which
was fed by the oxygen being given
off. All 110 people on board died.
ValuJet flight 592 Crash Recovery
Trans World Airlines Flight 800 (TWA
800), a Boeing 747 from JFK bound
for Paris exploded and crashed 12
mins after takeoff. The NTSB
concluded that fumes in the plane's
nearly empty center-wing fuel tank
had ignited, most likely after a short
circuit in a wire bundle led to a spark
in the fuel gauge sensor.
TWA Flight 800 Reconstruction (NTSB)
 Classification of maintenance problem
based on time span:
Short Run Maintenance – carried out hourly or daily
Long Run Maintenance – carried out weekly or monthly

Example:-
Hourly: inspection of correct lubricant, inspection of level of coolant

Daily: Cleaning of machinery, tightening of nuts, correct cooling,

inspection of various indicators (temp/pressure gauge), minor
adjustment of parts

Weekly: Major adjustment, lubrication, tightening of parts

Monthly: Checking for insulation, corrosion, safety guards, checking

of worn out and distorted parts
 Aviation Checks
Modern aviation maintenance is divided into four checks: A; B; C; and
D checks. These checks are carried out at predetermined times based
on the number of flight cycles (landings and take-offs) or flight time.
These checks are performed under a maintenance program founded
on MSG-3.
History of MSG:
Boeing developed MSG (Maintenance Steering Group) in 1968 (for
safety of their B747-100 aircraft)
Contrary to the traditional “overhaul and replace at time intervals”
approach
Saved time, money and unnecessary interference with components
MSG was made applicable to more aircrafts by making it general
(named MSG-2)
MSG-2 was later found to have drawbacks and thus MSG-3 was
introduced in 1980
Most maintenance organizations today are using the MSG-3 approach
 Drawbacks of MSG-2 Advantages of MSG-3
Does not take the economic view
Reduced maintenance costs
into the considerations. Simply
maintains aircraft safety at any cost
Does not treat hidden failures to
pilots: electric and electronic Fewer maintenance tasks
failures, fatigue inside the structure
etc
Some tasks are carried out for
Requires more staff economic reasons and others for
safety reasons
Does not take the modern corrosion Top-down process
prevention approach into account
Eliminates emotions
Types of Checks
Typical Maintenance Check Intervals
 Maintenance Costs
What is a Block Hour?
The time from the moment the
aircraft door closes
at departure of a revenue flight
until the moment the aircraft
door opens at the arrival gate
following its landing. Block hours
are the industry-standard
measure of aircraft utilization.

Costs per block hour for twelve

different aircrafts (all costs are
in Euros). These values are a
mixture of line, base,
component, and engine
maintenance cost.
 COSTS

Direct Indirect Overhead

Costs Costs Costs

Airplane Passenger
Related Related
Sales and
Marketing
Fuel, expenses,
In-flight meals Parking charges, accounting
maintenance
and catering, crew and cabin expenses,
and repairs,
airport load salary, handling personnel related
landing fees,
fees, price at base expenses and
handling,
commission stations other general
navigation and
on cargo, etc. management
staff expenses
expenses
 References
https://en.wikipedia.org/

https://www.slideshare.net/AnirudhGoyal4/maintenance-
engineering-71967159

http://aviationknowledge.wikidot.com/aviation:maintenance

https://www.popularmechanics.com/flight/g73/12-airplane-
crashes-that-changed-aviation/

https://www.hindawi.com/journals/aor/2016/2576825/

https://www.slideshare.net/traveltrotter/airline-cost-structure-
13749344
Thank you for listening!