An Incident From Back In The Day

When you work at an airport you get to see a lot of interesting things. I have witnessed near miracles and near tragedies. This following story falls some place in the middle.

I was working day shift with the usual band of odd balls. In OAK there are 32 gates. SWA has 12 of them. On any given night there are 22 aircraft that spend the night, as a result we have to move up to 10 planes each night to our remote parking area. When this incident happened there were were fewer gates, a total of 27 of which we at SWA used 11.

We were not the only game in town and there are other airlines that also push their planes off the gates at night. One of those airlines was American Airlines (AA no longer flies into Oakland). After all the SWA planes had been brought to the gates we noticed a commotion over by the MD-80 which AA has parked out on the ramp over night parking.

I rolled out there with my buddy SkyWalker and the nose gear on the MD-80 was pulled out of the strut.

  

The picture above is how she looked when we got there. When I worked at Delta we used to move MD-80s around with bag tugs, but that was not going to do it for this bunch of idiots! The contract ramp company had hooked up a wide-body tug that looked like it could have pulled the airport terminal building itself across the ramp up to this poor little MD-80.

The communication between the cockpit and the tug driver was not what I would call ideal. It seems that the aircraft brakes were set when the tug driver decided to FLOOR IT!!!

As a result the plane did not budge but that was not going to stop this gigantic tug. The tug proceeded to pull the nose tires/lower strut completely off the plane!

Well as you would expect all the AA big brass managers were all standing around scratching their heads. There was a lady who I assume to be the top OAK manager who asked my pal SkyWalker to stop taking pictures of the plane so naturally in fine SWA fashion he started taking pictures of her instead.

The AA Go-Team or Top notch Mechs showed up a few hours later with airbags and lifted her up.

That part was pretty interesting. The huge bags were inflated and they put in a new strut and the plane was gone the next day.

When she was up off the ground they put some chocks under her from the contract company that did the damage in the first place.

These types of things are happening all the time at airports. I have probably forgotten way more things like this than I can remember but I'll get with SkyWalker and see if he remembers any more.

Black Clouds

As a person who goes to work a lot I will be the first to admit that the majority of the days/shifts I spend at work are pretty unremarkable. Things break and we get them fixed. So why is it that the only days that you remember are the days that the "black cloud" comes out and hovers over you. For example: One night when I was working midnight shift I was assigned two or three planes (I don't remember) and it was raining. My assigned planes were pretty clean on the white board. The white board is where all our planes for the night are written down and any work that is to be done on the  plane is written next to the AC number. The problem with the white board is that once the plane is terminated those nice "clean" planes become a nightmare of pilot write ups and items found during your walk around.

As usual when its raining two of my planes were arriving at almost the same time and both remoting out to Tango. The first one comes in and when I got up stairs the pilot was writing in the log book (not a good sign). He tells me that the FO's windshield wiper is inop, "has been the whole day." One of the long standing jokes in maintenance is that those windshield wipers only seem to break when its raining outside!!  I parked that plane and went back for my second one which had a forward position light out on it. Usually not a problem but like I said it was raining.  I knew from experience that changing a fwd position light in the rain means that, no matter how much rain gear you have on, you are going to get wet.

The following week the black cloud seemed to stay with me. Most of the gate calls I went on turned into huge events with delays and cancelled flights. I grounded a plane on Monday with a Weather Radar problem that I had never seem before. To my amazement I grounded another plane on the following Thursday with the same issue. PSEU lights, Up Lock sensors, Stab Out of Trim lights they all seemed to follow me all week long.

  The last thing was the aft lav issue. I had a gate call that was reported to be a lav switch intermittent. When I get up there I figure out pretty fast that the toilet itself has to be replaced. Of course it has been messed up for like three or four legs now so its full of stuff.  To make sure the problem was not the switch I had to take the cover off which flew out of my hand and directly into the toilet. To make matters worse when it hit the stuff in the toilet the stuff splashed up and went all over the front of my speed suit. Like a trooper I soldiered on and had to take half the wall apart, the cover for the shut off valve apart, the frozen in place mount bolts out.

About this time the FO decided to come to the back of the plane to argue with me about holding passenger boarding. Of course the new toilet had to fight me going back in.

I am headed back to work tomorrow and I hope that the black cloud is gone by then. The work is the same work that I do everyday but on those days when the black cloud is following you the everyday jobs turn into a grind.

Spending Money

Last weekend I had an opportunity to assist three guys who were changing a C-Duct (a thrust reverser half) on one of our planes.This plane had been down for two days now costing the company big money. TR halves are very expensive (about half a million bucks I've been told) so we were spending some money that day. These guys had the old TR half off by the time I got out there. I was just going to snap a few pics and be on my way but since I had never changed one before I wanted to check out what they were doing.

Rare sight. No fan cowl and no core cowl!

It turns out that I was able to help out a little with the installation of the new TR half.  It was really windy that day so it was good that I hung around. When Brooklyn picked up the TR half  the with the fork lift the wind caught it immediately and it took two of us to steady the thing while it was positioned.

The different slings and hoists that are engineered to accomplish jobs like this always amaze me. The set up they sent for this was a chain hung from the forks on the fork lift going to a block and then to a pole that connects into a big C shaped frame that connects onto the C Duct.

Muscling the new C Duct in

Those guys got the old C Duct off and the new one on in about two hours! That's a pretty good time. I learned a little along the way and except for the wind it was a very smooth job.

Questions Of The Month

Imagine paying a group of people to troubleshoot, diagnose, and fix a problem but then requiring them to call you EVERY time they change a part to get your blessing on putting the correct part in. Why would you not just pay some non-skilled person to describe the problem to you and change the part you want them too? What does this do to the employee? How can it be fixed?

A Series Of Unfortunate Events

These past few weeks at Southwest Airlines have been very busy. The incident we had with a lap joint on top of the fuselage of one of our 737-300s has been well documented by the media. Planes have been inspected, inspection methods have been changed and we all have been educated by this unfortunate event. Of course if any of you mechanics out there are like me I had to answer to an even higher authority than the FAA-my father.

As soon as I heard about the airplane I knew that I would be getting a call from my father very soon. My father also went to Aviation High School in NY. Although he never got to use his licence he did spend his working career in maintenance working for the NYC Transit Authority, rising through the ranks eventually to become the first black supervisor of the Structures Division in the Transit Authority. As you can imagine he had some questions for me regarding exactly what was going on at SWA Maintenance. He did call and we discussed the whole aging aircraft thing and that was that.

Being a mechanically minded fellow he handily understood most of my airline jargon while I jabbered away about lap joints, aircraft cycles, etc. This has been going on for my whole career, any incident that Delta Airlines had while I worked there was discussed. Any kind of cargo carrier that had mechanical issues while I worked at Ameriflight was cause for a call and discussion. As a matter of fact any plane incident can spur on these types of calls. While these unfortunate events are not something that any mechanic hopes to see they are a reality of our industry. My fathers calls help me to keep in the forefront of my mind that my family flies on these planes that I work on. I like most mechanics know that if we do not stay sharp and perform to the utmost of our abilities that bad things can happen. When I first started at SWA and was a little unsure of my self I asked one of the "vets" if he thought I should change a tire or not. This guy was a wise, older gentleman and he said that any time he is not sure about working on something or not he just thinks "would I feel ok if my wife and kids got on this plane in the morning and I had not changed that part." That was all it took for me.

These calls from my relatives (mostly my dad) remind me that the job I do is a very important one. The job we do is not easy, the job requires us to say no a lot and disappoint and inconvenience travellers now and then. Sometimes we are heroes but a lot of times we come off as the bad guys. That is simply the nature of the business. I love my job and I love working at Southwest Airlines there are people I work with that can not honestly say those things. Those people can make it harder for the others but no matter where you go you will find those types of people. I hope to never see something like this last incident happen to ANY AIRLINE but it is especially rotten for it to happen to MY airline. Southwest Airlines have the best maintained airplanes in the industry and we will remedy this issue.

New Tools! And Why The Tools At Lowe's Are Wack!

This year I have decided to go through my tools at work, reorganize, clean out, and try to make my tool bag and "tool kits" more professional. Maybe professional is not the correct term but just easier for ME to use and a little more presentable. I also made the decision to have another tool bag. I wanted to make a small tool bag for what I consider small or light jobs that I do upstairs that I am tired of carrying my big heavy tool bag to. A smaller bag, with a common (slotted) screw driver, small pair of hogs, phillips screw driver, my leatherman, a pair of dikes (diagonal cutters) and a small set of allen keys. I had a bag that I used for a while a few years ago and decided against. I also had a small pair of hogs, the leatherman, and allen keys. I unretired a pair of dikes from home and went to Lowes' to buy the rest.

I had a gift card form Lowes' that I got for Christmas so I figured I would get the stuff I wanted from there. Sounds easy but I spent two hours in Lowes' looking for something worthwhile to purchase. All I wanted was a slotted screwdriver, phillips, or even better a flip flop that could do both. My troubles started when I figured out that ALL of Lowes' tools are cheap plastic things that look like they would not last a year out on the line. ALL the flip flop screwdrivers were garbage units that tried to do too many things and as a result everything they did was wack. When I look for a flip flop I either want one that is simply one handle with one shank that has a slotted head on one side and a phillips head on the other. ALL the ones at Lowes' where gimmicky with special apex heads that could be flipped around but that if you lost them-the tool becomes useless. The one half decent one they had had an awful plastic handle with a cap on top to hold the apex heads. The cap was cheap plastic also and you could tell it was going to fall apart.

I ended up buying a slotted #3 Husky screwdriver with an acrylic handle sort of like the old school Craftsman screwdrivers. Since I could not get a flip flop I tried to find a apex holder, or a screwdriver that could hold a standard apex bit. Lowes' does not carry one of those. What I did find was a little apex holder that came in a kit that included a small pair of hogs, the apex holder with bits, a small tape measure and a knife. The apex holder was small (about three inches) with a magnetic apex holder and the rest of the stuff I just kept at home. The little kit was about $10.00 so I thought it was worth the risk.

Since I started using my small tool bag the little apex holder has helped me out a few times and I think I like the idea of the smaller tool bag. I also added a small waterproof pouch on the side for my apex bits.

In addition to my tool bag, I got my golf cart cleaned out, and organized. I was able to make enough room in my cart for my own environmental splice kit that I just made. The kit includes splices, barrels, wax cord, zip ties, a small wire stripper, lighter, shrink wrap, and a small portable butane torch. I always hate having to go back to the shop to get the environmental splices when I'm out on Tango so I now have my own small kit.

This may seem like overkill to a lot of people but the world of a Line Mechanic is a fast paced one. I still believe in trying to do my job as quickly and efficiently as I can. I hope these new tools will help.

It's Hard To Let Go

I work with tools for a living. Tools have allowed me to own a few homes, buy nice cars, go on vacations, put clothes on my families back, and feed them as well. Tools have been a major part of my life since high school and like most mechanics I have come to love tools, all tools. I can spend a lot of time in the tool section of any store. I like ALL tools, I even collect old and antique tools so when a tool breaks and is no longer useful to me it is understandable that I have trouble throwing it away. Like a lot of mechanics, I think, I end up with a lot of broken tools in my tool box at home.

The other day while working at home I needed a pair of Channel locks or slip joint pliers. I went and pulled the largest ones I have out of my box and went to work. Well these pliers came to me a few years ago from a person who was working on my back yard. This guy disappeared and later I found out he got arrested! When he got out he called and said he was going to finish the job and come by to get his tools. Long story short: two years later I sold all his stuff but kept some of the things I thought were worth it.

When I tried to use these pliers they would slip, every time I went to apply pressure to the stupid thing the joint would slip and the pliers would not be tight anymore. I tried tightening them with the same result and by now I was pissed off so I chucked them in the trash.

Sounds like an easy choice but those pliers sat in the trash for two days and every time I went into that room I saw them. Being a tool lover I kept thinking "maybe I could fix them" or "maybe I can use it for something", "hey I could always use the handles as levers". I stayed strong and they ended up going away. But this brings to light how hard it is for a mechanic to throw away a tool.

When a tool that I use at work breaks I "retire" it. When I retire a tool I bring it home and put it in my big tool box. These tools have been to battle and war with me, they have been on the cold ground with me, they have fixed millions of dollars worth of equipment in their lifespan. When they get too old or busted up I bring them home. The nature of my job requires that the tools I use work when I need them so when they get too old they have to be replaced. When I worked in the hangar I was able to keep my older tools at work and in that setting it is often handy to have some wrenches that you no longer use around which you can cut up or weld on to make special tools.

For me are my life. I will always have a hard time getting rid of them and truth be told, if you take care of them they do not need to be replaced often. I have a hard time letting go of them, some of them have been with me since Aviation High School and are really a part of me. They say that you always remember your first love, well you always remember your first flip-flop screw driver, or good pair of safety wire pliers. I may be a "tool nerd" or "airplane junky" but that's ok, I keep planes in the air, sounds simple but requires a lot of tools and some knowledge. Tools are to mechanics like a computer program is to a tech guy, we use them to figure out (in our case) what is wrong with a plane. Simple concept and when done right it's like a little miracle.