Don’t let just anyone touch your plane

[DXB]

    Seems like the MSC in question should provide a generous allowance for @M20Doc to remediate this issue  and perhaps offer a bit of a labor refund to the OP, along with profuse apology.  Assuming they do that with the appropriate  attitude, I wouldn't encourage naming the MSC publicly or going to the FAA.  Even very good teams f*ck up from time to time - it's how they handle it that matters. 

[StevenL757]

1 hour ago, A64Pilot said:

Really should in my opinion document things and call the FSDO. This kind of work isn’t just a window scratch, this kind of thing could lead to structural failure, and of course loss of life.

its to a large extent what the FSDO is for, They will listen to an Owner especially with documentation, and I would do nothing to fix it until I called the FSDO either 

Leaving a row of rivets out of an airframe is criminally negligent (in my opinion) 

Yeah - well-said.  Nothing else I could add there...

[Hank]

1 hour ago, Browncbr1 said:

Probably one person removed old system and different person installed new AP.   

And no supervision? No checking that everything is done properly? Just "I did my part" and send the plane out? YGBSM!!

[RLCarter]

4 hours ago, M20Doc said:

I’m not sure that I can buy that as a reason, forgetting or missing one small thing, maybe. This one has a number of issues with workmanship and I’ve still got to review the logs and paperwork for other portions of the job that were done at the same time.

Clarence

I agree this was a major oversight, you’ve definitely have to put eyes and hands on pretty much everything they may or should have touched at this point. With your “Eagle” vision I doubt this story ends here.

[Will.iam]

If a whole row of rivets were not there how was panel still holding on? This gives a good reminder to do a through preflight acceptance check anytime my airplane is worked on before it leaves the shop. 

[Hank]

15 minutes ago, Will.iam said:

If a whole row of rivets were not there how was panel still holding on? This gives a good reminder to do a through preflight acceptance check anytime my airplane is worked on before it leaves the shop. 

I always do a thorough preflight and check EVERYTHING that I can after a "hands off" annual or repair. Everything visible outside; close look at engine; check every button, switch, knob, dial and control inside before and again after engine start.

But when yiunfind a problem, you also.need to check the correction. After my first "drop off" annual, there was a loud buzz when I turned on the master. IA said he had just washed the plane, despite arranging pickup several.days in advance. His "fix" was to pull the stall horn breaker!

[A64Pilot]

26 minutes ago, Will.iam said:

If a whole row of rivets were not there how was panel still holding on? This gives a good reminder to do a through preflight acceptance check anytime my airplane is worked on before it leaves the shop. 

By the other three sides I’m sure and as they overlap so wind doesn’t get under them it didn’t open up.

But here’s the thing, we are a semi-monocoque construction, meaning of course the skin is a stressed member, the whole thing gets it’s strength from its shape and the fact it’s one piece, drill out the wrong row of rivets and strength can be seriously compromised.

This is a big deal, this is way worse than a loose mag in my opinion. This is leaving prop bolts loose and not safety wired dumb, leaving motor mount bolts untotqued and not safetied etc.

Sure people make mistakes, that’s why we have others check behind us, why we use slippage mark, why every step should be written down, a corrective action taken and it inspected.

Lots of should be’s but should bees don’t make honey. The toughest thing for me to get over coming from the Military is just how slack the FAA requirements are, they really put a whole lot of responsibility on an individual mechanic being professional. It’s a huge responsibility and when you see things like this you have to wonder what else there is.

[Guest]

4 hours ago, StevenL757 said:

Exactly.  Nor should you or your staff have to de-rivet at that level.

The furthest you'd have to go on an Ovation is to drill out the Avex non-structural rivets on one large inspection panel out in the Rt wing to access the roll servo (assuming you're replacing servos in a KFC- or KAP-150 AP.

I certainly hopes the owner will bring this shop to light here, or at least hold them accountable.  It's stuff like this that give GA a black eye.  And we have enough black eyes already.

The row of missing rivets look like they were drilled out to removed a mounting bracket from the old autopilot system.  The new Garmin system did not use the same location for its brackets.  It's on the belly skin immediately behind the battery compartment.

Clarence

 

[Aerodon]

4 hours ago, StevenL757 said:

Exactly.  Nor should you or your staff have to de-rivet at that level.

The furthest you'd have to go on an Ovation is to drill out the Avex non-structural rivets on one large inspection panel out in the Rt wing to access the roll servo (assuming you're replacing servos in a KFC- or KAP-150 AP.

I certainly hopes the owner will bring this shop to light here, or at least hold them accountable.  It's stuff like this that give GA a black eye.  And we have enough black eyes already.

I looked at pictures of a 252, and there seems to be a support bracket for the KFC150 autopilot servo along the seam.  

Aerodon

[Larry]

If the bracket is not interfering with the new installation, is it required to remove it?

 

[Austintatious]

I understand the sentiment about holding them accountable...  But about all you can do is ask them to pay the cost to remedy their shortcomings. 

 

I keep telling people that the worst part about owning a small aircraft is finding Good, capable and honest people to work on it.  They are out there, but stories like this are all too common.   My partner is going back and forth with a shop now about an improperly run Turbo oil line...  They just cant seem to figure it out...

I will likley sell my rockets in 4 years and go experimental.  I am pretty certain I can do a better job than most of the mechanics I have worked with.  One of my Rockets still has messed up paint on the lower cowl from when a mechanic improperly jacked it and it fell off the nose jack.  He said He would fixed it then ghosted me.

Edited May 10, 2022 by Austintatious

[N9405V]

Here is part of the install manual for the GFC500 in case anyone wanted to take a look.

 

190-02291-63_05.pdf

[PilotX]

17 hours ago, Rmag said:

We’ve done several autopilots in various Mooney’s.  I don’t recall ever drilling out a belly skin to do this.

Double check the GFC500. I am pretty sure I helped buck rivets in the belly of mine near the end of the install.

[PilotX]

2 hours ago, Larry said:

If the bracket is not interfering with the new installation, is it required to remove it?

 

It's worth 2 knots. Hells yes remove it.

[A64Pilot]

3 hours ago, Austintatious said:

I understand the sentiment about holding them accountable...  But about all you can do is ask them to pay the cost to remedy their shortcomings. 

 

I disagree, you may can prevent them from causing damage, perhaps from hurting anyone else. The rivets are bad, the down force spring is a flight control, and flight controls are especially “touchy”. Besides you don’t know what else there may be, those two things jumped out, so logically everything that they touched has to be throughly inspected, to not do so would be irresponsible.

I see this as no different than witnessing any number of improprieties being committed like drunk driving, or beating a child, yet not reporting it. Within limits of course I think it’s a duty to report something that you feel certain if not reported will result in someone being hurt or worse. 

It should be the aircraft owner though in my opinion, sure you can say logically that the next shop should, but it’s not their airplane first and foremost and to be honest the FAA has dealt with one or two shops fighting and one tries to use the FAA to hurt the other. And it’s a US N numbered airplane.

[Guest]

5 hours ago, Larry said:

If the bracket is not interfering with the new installation, is it required to remove it?

 

While technically it’s not in the way of the new Garmin autopilot why leave it behind?  Leaving stuff behind makes other work more difficult with junk in the way. It adds unwanted weight and unwanted difficulty doing future work with harder access.

Clarence

[MikeOH]

6 hours ago, M20Doc said:

The row of missing rivets look like they were drilled out to removed a mounting bracket from the old autopilot system.  The new Garmin system did not use the same location for its brackets.  It's on the belly skin immediately behind the battery compartment.

Clarence

 

@M20Doc

Can the assumption that the new shop removed the old AP be verified?  What was the old autopilot?  Do we know it was still installed when the plane was taken to the new shop? As in, do we know that the shop that just installed the GFC500 removed the old AP, or was it already gone?

Definitely NOT trying to defend the shop, but absent some confirmation of the above I don't want to falsely condemn them, either.  (Sure, they should have pointed it out, but that is definitely NOT in the same category as being the ones that did this!!)

[Guest]

1 hour ago, MikeOH said:

@M20Doc

Can the assumption that the new shop removed the old AP be verified?  What was the old autopilot?  Do we know it was still installed when the plane was taken to the new shop? As in, do we know that the shop that just installed the GFC500 removed the old AP, or was it already gone?

Definitely NOT trying to defend the shop, but absent some confirmation of the above I don't want to falsely condemn them, either.  (Sure, they should have pointed it out, but that is definitely NOT in the same category as being the ones that did this!!)

The shop in question removed the old autopilot a King system and installed the new Garmin system, along with a number of other major items on the plane.  All confirmed by a log entry signed by the owner of the MSC.

Clarence 

[ilovecornfields]

@M20Doc, thank you for sharing. It sounds like you’re doing the appropriate thing by bringing it to the shops attention and hopefully they will respond appropriately.

In my line of work I also often find things that others could have done better and it has lead to some interesting conversations. 

[Guest]

19 minutes ago, ilovecornfields said:

@M20Doc, thank you for sharing. It sounds like you’re doing the appropriate thing by bringing it to the shops attention and hopefully they will respond appropriately.

In my line of work I also often find things that others could have done better and it has lead to some interesting conversations. 

The owner has been in discussions with the shop over the situation.  We will fix the issues and let them work out the details.  My job isn’t to police them it’s to fix the plane as well as I can.  The owner can deal with the FAA should he choose to.

Clarence

[MikeOH]

1 hour ago, M20Doc said:

The shop in question removed the old autopilot a King system and installed the new Garmin system, along with a number of other major items on the plane.  All confirmed by a log entry signed by the owner of the MSC.

Clarence 

UGH!

Thanks for clearing that up.

I'm truly disgusted.

[jaylw314]

8 hours ago, A64Pilot said:

I disagree, you may can prevent them from causing damage, perhaps from hurting anyone else. The rivets are bad, the down force spring is a flight control, and flight controls are especially “touchy”. Besides you don’t know what else there may be, those two things jumped out, so logically everything that they touched has to be throughly inspected, to not do so would be irresponsible.

I see this as no different than witnessing any number of improprieties being committed like drunk driving, or beating a child, yet not reporting it. Within limits of course I think it’s a duty to report something that you feel certain if not reported will result in someone being hurt or worse. 

It should be the aircraft owner though in my opinion, sure you can say logically that the next shop should, but it’s not their airplane first and foremost and to be honest the FAA has dealt with one or two shops fighting and one tries to use the FAA to hurt the other. And it’s a US N numbered airplane.

That's probably not a great analogy, given that it's unlikely anyone in the shop intended to leave the rivets out or the spring disconnected, as opposed to the willful decision to drive drunk or beat your child. 

If the shop had a problem with personnel or culture that they knew about that was likely to result in something like this, and willfully made no attempt to fix that cause, then it might be a reasonable analogy and warrant that level of moral indignation. However, that willfulness has not been established at this point (at least as far as we know).

Incidentally, I remind people I'm in the car with that as a mandated reported of child abuse and neglect, I'm required to report them to child protective services if I see them fail to secure their children in the car.  It's not actually true, but it's a fun way to scare people into doing the right thing  

 

[A64Pilot]

You and I respectfully disagree, the aircraft was definitely willful, 100%. First the person doing the work was exceedingly neglectful, I maintain criminally, but I am no lawyer.

But then there was a second layer of willful neglect, It’s unlikely the owner of the shop did the work, but he did do the entry. This is what us mechanics call pencil maintenance, where the entry is made, but no work or in this case no inspection was done. It’s illegal and stupid of course, and those types in my mind need to be stripped of their certificate. The best case is they give mechanics a bad name, worst they kill people.

In a shop ( I was an Accountable Manager of a Certified Repair Station) it’s very common for the Manager to do the paperwork, but he or she really has to throughly inspect the work done, first to ensure quality and safety and to protect the shops reputation and also because the FAR’s somewhere I’m sure require it.

I’m Retired but still hold my A&P/IA, live in a fly in community and occasionally people do work under my supervision. They understand that I have to inspect everything done, It’s my name going in the book and I am legally responsible, I’d be a fool to not make sure the work was done professionally and IAW the FAR’s. 

The owner willfully chose not to get up out of his chair and spend a few minutes inspecting the work before he made the logbook entry and 337.

The only way the FAA finds out about such activity is when there is a crash or when someone makes a complaint.

That’s why in my opinion there should be a complaint made, but document things before they are repaired so you have proof. I don’t know if the FSDO can or will travel to Canada, that’s beyond my experience.

 

 

 

Edited May 11, 2022 by A64Pilot

[Austintatious]

2 hours ago, A64Pilot said:

You and I respectfully disagree, the aircraft was definitely willful, 100%. First the person doing the work was exceedingly neglectful, I maintain criminally, but I am no lawyer.

But then there was a second layer of willful neglect, It’s unlikely the owner of the shop did the work, but he did do the entry. This is what us mechanics call pencil maintenance, where the entry is made, but no work or in this case no inspection was done. It’s illegal and stupid of course, and those types in my mind need to be stripped of their certificate. The best case is they give mechanics a bad name, worst they kill people.

In a shop ( I was an Accountable Manager of a Certified Repair Station) it’s very common for the Manager to do the paperwork, but he or she really has to throughly inspect the work done, first to ensure quality and safety and to protect the shops reputation and also because the FAR’s somewhere I’m sure require it.

I’m Retired but still hold my A&P/IA, live in a fly in community and occasionally people do work under my supervision. They understand that I have to inspect everything done, It’s my name going in the book and I am legally responsible, I’d be a fool to not make sure the work was done professionally and IAW the FAR’s. 

The owner willfully chose not to get up out of his chair and spend a few minutes inspecting the work before he made the logbook entry and 337.

The only way the FAA finds out about such activity is when there is a crash or when someone makes a complaint.

That’s why in my opinion there should be a complaint made, but document things before they are repaired so you have proof. I don’t know if the FSDO can or will travel to Canada, that’s beyond my experience.

 

 

 

As I said, I get the desire to hold them accountable...  And I stand by saying that the only real way to do that is to make them pay for the remedy.

The thing is, it gets really messy when you talk about reporting them to the FAA.   Pretend for a moment that you are a Fed... A pilot calls you and says, "hey, this shop worked on my aircraft and forgot a ton of rivets on the belly of my aircraft and handed it over to me.  I found it after I flew back to home base"

MY first question would be " Did you pre flight the aircraft?"  

Now, you can argue all day that checking those rivets is not part of a normal pre-flight... but a pre-flight after major maintenance is not and should not be a normal pre-flight.  The PIC always has the final say in the airworthiness of the aircraft and it could well be argued that a ton of missing rivet on the outside of the aircraft are indeed within the purview of that.

So by going to the FAA, you have to condemn yourself to hold them accountable.    That may be the most morally correct thing to do.  That does not mean it is the most practical. 

As I made apparent in my first post, I am sickened by general lack of good honest capable aircraft mechanics...  And I sympathize with the desire to hold the shp accountable for their mistake..... But since everyone seems to be in the mood to hold people accountable... Why are we not holding The pilot accountable for accepting and flying the aircraft in an un-airworthy condition after major work?  Sure, we can all kick and scream and blame the mechanics... and that would be fair if we were talking only about something done wrong behind a panel, out of sight... But when a ton of rivets are missing off the exterior of the aircraft, I see no excuse. 

The Owner needs to make the shop pay for the remedy and take a lesson from this....  A pre-flight after major work is not and should not be a typical walk around.

I have spent my life learning lessons like this the hard way... I have the absolute worst luck of any person you will ever meet.  I have to make my own, every time.  I sometimes feel like the universe is out to get me, so I stay on guard.   This post maintenance preflight lesson here is one that all seeing get to learn the easy way.... but to do so you have to stop placing all the blame on the shop.

Edited May 11, 2022 by Austintatious

[A64Pilot]

I’ve worked with the FSDO inspectors quite a bit, they don’t go after the person who makes a complaint, unless maybe it’s painfully obvious that they are trying to use the FAA for vengeance and that the complaint is boundless, and even then nothing was done. For the FAA to actually do something, apparently it’s a long painful process and frankly a lot more work than most want to do, so enforcement isn’t very common and usually is only done for particularly egregious things, which is why I think so many people are so blatant, they don’t see many if any punished.

I’ve seen that in a small town in Georgia, someone opened up a shop where there was one on field and started taking customers away because he did better work and delivered on time.

I’m sure after about complaint number three they sat the first guy down and quoted all the FAR’s they could have thrown at him, but nothing was done.

While I won’t say the FAA are your friends, I will say they aren’t your enemy.

I see this as witnessing a crime, do you decide to not get involved, or do you report it so hopefully the criminal is caught and someone else doesn’t become a victim.

Worse actually as your the victim. So as the victim do you try to talk to the criminal and get them to try to volunteer restitution, or do you call the cops?

I’ll openly admit to not laying on my back and inspecting the bottom of the aircraft for a pre-flight. I see it when I wash it and during Annual, I think that’s true of most responsible pilots.

Edited May 11, 2022 by A64Pilot