As in any highly complex system, errors occur in aircraft maintenance operations. However, unlike most work performed by professional mechanics, failure to perform aircraft maintenance properly can place human lives at risk. Workers can never eliminate risk, but proper procedures performed by competent, well trained, and well-equipped maintenance personnel can reduce these risks significantly.
Errors can easily occur when maintenance responsibilities fall on one person. Safety assurance should rely on a qualified team of technicians instead of one person. In other words, when only one person is working on an aircraft, there are no checks and balances. One person can easily become distracted and miss, forget, or overlook something. A team of qualified individuals working together decreases the potential for errors since two or more mechanics would need to make the same mistake or overlook the same problem.
Redundancy in the maintenance operation reduces accidents through duplication and overlap. While it might not seem to be the most efficient way to perform aircraft maintenance operations, the risks of failure associated with maintenance errors are so high, particularly when the aircraft in question is a business or commercial aircraft, that reducing maintenance costs by eliminating overlap cannot be the primary consideration.
In any aircraft safety program, there must be adequately documented procedures that all maintenance personnel must follow. In addition, all work performed must be carefully documented. Work performed that cannot be traced back to an individual is always a potential problem. The reason is simple: If no one acknowledges performing the work, then it is likely that:
[c] it was not done by a qualified mechanic, or
Still another way to reduce aviation maintenance errors and the accidents that can result from these errors is to require ongoing professional training for licensed aircraft mechan...