Statistics about accidents and incidents show that “maintenance error” is one of the main contributory factors. People are the most important, flexible and adaptable values in aviation but, at the same time, people are vulnerable and their capacities can be strongly decreased under the wrong environment. Knowledge of human factors in aviation has been redefined to include maintenance after a first approach aimed to flight-crew environment.
Nowadays, available information about the subject allow operators and maintenance organizations to define and implement policies helping to decrease error proneness in maintenance.
About maintenance, some studies identify three kind of errors as the most frequent:
Forgetting to reset a system, an element, tools…...
Wrong installation.
Installation of the wrong piece.
Contributory Factors for these errors:
Workload/Stress and commercial pressure.
Wrong communication process.
Inadequate environment to work.
Problems with language used to work.
Wrong or hard-to-understand procedures.
Lack of training for the specific task.
Lack of communication between shifts, interruptions….
Regarding these points, Part. 145 introduces many conditions requiring implementation of safety policies and adoption of practices linked with Human Factors.