Me at work, doing a walkaround on a B757

[Chock 17,769]

Here is me doing a Menzies aviation training video for how to do a final walkaround check prior to headsetting out an airliner. This was on stand 23 at EGCC a few weeks ago with an Icelandair Boeing 757. Because the fixed electrical power is still connected and the bridge is still on as I do this, I've shoved my ear defenders down my jacket out of the way since I'll be putting the headset on shortly. The ramp can be noisy, especially if the APU is running, but my ear defenders were not necessary because the APU was not running and it's convenient to shove them in your jacket like that, however, I'll still have to check the fuselage after the jet bridge has come off the forward door and then take the power off when the APU has been started. It's always good to get a walkaround done early at this point before these final two things are done so you don't rush the main walkaround and of course it's as well to be aware that there's often a good chance that passengers will be at the windows filming with their phones, so you want to make sure that not only do you do a check properly, but also look like you are very obviously doing it properly too. Getting it done early is good in case there are any minor issues too, for example, today I was doing a walkaround on a BA A320 and found that the potable water panel had popped open, so we had to sort that before I'd let the thing push out.

What I'm checking on this walkaround is first that the towbar is connected and in okay condition with intact shear pins (the plane has a red line on the landing gear door and this mark the limit for how far the towbar can steer the nosewheel on a tight turn, the shear pins - these are small bolts connecting the head of the towbar - they are designed to break if this turn point is passed or if the tug jolts too much, in order to protect the landing gear from stress). If they did break, we'd have to stop the push and sort this out and also make sure we found all the bits so as not to create a FOD hazard on the taxiway. Continuing the walkaround, I start at the front, check the nose for damage, all the probes and antennas, doors and hatches, inlets and outlets, the engine fan blades, the slats, flaps and static wicks, lights, wheels, tires, landing gear and their bays, and that all the ground service equipment is clear of the aeroplane and none of it has damaged any of the aeroplane panels when it was put on the aeroplane by having contacted it. I also look for things like evidence of a tail strike, leaks, or anything else unusual. At this point the chocks have been taken off the main wheels, but they stay on the nose wheels until we are ready to go when the jet bridge comes off. The tug, being connected and with its brakes on, is an additional means to stop the aeroplane from rolling.

After this walkaround, I'd confirm this had been done with the crew and that everything was clear, then ask the crew on the headset if we were okay to disconnect the ground power when I heard the APU was cranked up and then when the jet bridge came off. The ground power is the the yellow box with the power lead connected to the underside of the plane. It is on a pantograph and when disconnected, it is pushed out of the way so it is not in the path of the tug. When the power is disconnected and the jet bridge is off, I'd check that these had not damaged the area around the door or any of the probes, then I'd be standing by for the pushback, listening on the headset and monitoring ATC. The crew would call for push and start and we'd monitor the radios to hear that but we'd see the anti-collision beacons go on too and know they were good to go from that as well. The crew would then tell me they were cleared to push and I'd signal a colleague to go into the road behind the aeroplane with some marshalling wands so he can stop any traffic from passing behind the aeroplane. This is very important, especially coming off this stand because its very busy on the taxiway behind the aeroplane and th road behind if on a corner too, so there's a lot of airport vehicles passing behind the aeroplane.

I'd have a quick look to check and then when I know nothing is behind our aeroplane, I'd call for the crew to release the parking brake and signal to the tow driver that this was off by clenching my fist, then when I was happy everything was clear, I'd open my fist to signal him to let his brakes off and commence the push. I tell the crew the push is commencing and ask them to stand by on the engines. Then I'm walking alongside the tug and making sure everything is clear as we push back. as we pass over the rear of stand road onto the taxiway, I give the road guy a thumbs up to let him know he can get out of the road as we continue pushing out.

When we get near to the tug release point and I'm sure the engine blast is not going to hit any other aeroplanes, I'll tell the crew they are clear to start 1 and 2, and confirm their starts so I can watch the engines to make sure the start ups go okay. I signal the driver that the engines are starting by holing up  1 or 2 fingers and giving the engine start up signal with a whirling motion of my finger so he knows that he might have to give it a bit more throttle because the 757 has a lot of thrust even at idle power, the tug driver can also help to monitor the engines in case there was a fire too of course, since he can see the engine on the other side of the aeroplane better than I can. 

When we get to the TRP and stop, I get the crew to put the parking brake on, signal the tug drive that the brakes are on, I chock the nosewheel as a safety precaution, then I pump the wheels down on the towbar and disconnect the towbar from the tug and signal the driver to back off; he backs clear and stops in front of the wing so the flight crew can see it. I then disconnect the towbar from the aeroplane and push it clear and the tug driver attaches it to the rear of the tug whilst I remove the steering bypass pin, disconnect the headset and finally remove the chock and sling it on the tug, having confirmed with the crew that their engine starts are all okay and such. I then walk off with the tug and check we are clear of the wingtip. When I know we are clear, I hold up the remove before flight tag on the bypass pin so the crew can see it, and this is my signal to them that they are good to go and can call for permission to taxi as we drive off the taxiway with the tug.

If there is a thunderstorm, we cannot use the headset since it would be an electrical connection to the aeroplane if it was struck by lightning, and so there are a set of hand signals for all this stuff too which you can use with the flight deck crew in such circumstances, or for if the headset fails when on the pushback; things like disconnecting the tug, signals for engine or brake fires and such. From stand 23 where this aeroplane is, the aeroplanes pushes back over the road, then it jinks slightly to the left to align with another taxiway, then it straightens up a bit and continues backwards until its nosewheel is adjacent to the centreline of stand 4 on the taxiway centreline, which is the TRP for pushes off stand 23.

 

Edited November 3, 2021 by Chock

[n4gix 4,969]

Thank you Alan for the interesting video and explanation!

[jon b 2,083]

Very good.

2 good starts , clear to disconnect and see you on the left with the pin, have a good night !

[charliearon 3,105]

Hmm...you missed that hydraulic leak on the right wing! 😳  Good job, Alan!  Take a raise outta petty cash! 😀

[mwilk 1,109]

When those shear pins break you know it. The tug goes one way and the tow bar and the aircraft go the other way that was not intended. I had the left rear wheel of the pushback fall completely off pushing a 757 one day. I thought I ran over a chock when the tug jumped. The captain called down and said, "Hey, the wheel came off of your tug." Fun times.

[Garys 214]

More often than not, ramp guys who go to this extreme on final walk arounds find faults that are already logged, causing unnecessary maintenance delays and cost to the airline. Dents and tires are the biggest call outs. The pilot already did his/her walk around. Why are you trying to do the job of an AME?

I would be interested to hear of a time when you found a serious defect that was missed by the AME/pilot during an international turn once the cargo loading was finished that wasnt caused during servicing.

Edited November 4, 2021 by Garys

[Mallard 195]

Like Garys, I'm wondering if such an intense walkaround inspection of the plane itself would not the job of the crew? I get the checking of ramp clutter and all connections to and from the plane (and all access points and panels like the potable water one you mention) that have been affected by the ground servicing involved while it's on the ramp, but are you qualified to to make a judgment call on the mechanical aspects of the aircraft? And what happens if you see something amd voice your concern (to who?) that the crew says will do just fine?

Or are you just reeeeeally into planes? 😉

Cheers

 

Mallard

[mazelda 124]

Ok, so i'm sure i'm going to get a backlash on this but i've read and had enough!

Firstly i'm a Qualified licenced engineer of 40+ years and have had approvals on 20+ aircraft types during that time.

But when i read this, i thought who on earth is this, telling people what to look for on a turn round. So perhaps Chock, you can explain to all of us exactly what you are inspecting and why the static ports and pitot tubes for example are checked? Also exactly what you are inspecting with the fan blades and any limitations you find?

Potable water panels don't just pop open,they are left open by the ground handling department forgeting to close them.

Also perhaps you can explain to us mere mortals exactly when a tire cut is safe and when its not, and what manuals you use to determin this? Or any other fault YOU find during your walkround that the flight crew has already carried out. And if you then report it to the crew who is it they call? Oh yes that right, the Qualified AME on duty which the crew would have already done, if they had spotted it and were unsure on THEIR walkround.

As I also work in the UK i know that Menzies do not have a licenced engineering department but are predominently a ground handling company that offer all things related to aircraft turnrounds and were i work they do the dispatch,baggage loading, and headset which is normally done by one of the lead baggage loaders or dispatchers occasionally if qualified.( ring any bells)

So on behalf of all current jar 66, CAA AML, and FAA A and P licence holders past and present that spent many years and study time to get these licences may i respectfully suggest that you bear all that in mind when you post. I'm sure people not in the industry may find it interesting, but some of us are more informed of the workings of a turnround and have worked very hard to know whats safe, whats not and why.

Rant over 

 

[jon b 2,083]

My understanding of this is that the ground crew walk around serves a different purpose to that of the qualified engineer and crew walk around, it’s basically an a$$ covering exercise for the handling agent.

If on a turn around a dent in the airframe is discovered for example , that has been caused by a ground handling vehicle the airline will investigate and claim against the ground handling agent. 

The airline will try to find out where and when the prang occurred , the dispatching ground handling company at airport A is able to say we did a thorough walk round inspection as the aircraft was dispatched and all ground vehicles were clear and said dent was not present at dispatch , so it must be the result of a prang after the aircraft landed at airport B talk to that company its got nothing to do with us governor.

I believe a similar walk round is carried out when an aircraft arrives on stand before any doors are opened by the accepting ground crew, to look for any previous damage that they might get blamed for.

Personally as a captain the more eyes that look over the airframe the better, I’m not bothered where or who the report comes from, better safe than sorry.

A good example of this was a few years ago due to an errant push back instruction from ATC ( I was told the controller involved subsequently resigned )we were pushed back into a tight taxiway and ended up slicing the right wingtip on the 747 against a blast fence. The tug driver and ground crew (there were no wing walkers for some reason) remained  oblivious, as did we in the flightdeck

 I got a call the cabin crew sat at the 3 doors saying a passenger said the wing was touching a fence and wanted to know was that normal? As we were on the yellow taxi line I didn’t think it was possible but asked the guy on the headset to take a look. He came back and confirmed we had hit the fence, I reported it to ATC who promptly scrambled a full scale emergency response which probably worried the pax despite my best calming PA. When I went to look for myself the right wingtip had been very badly damaged.

Now, although the aircraft would have flown ok there would have been extra fuel burn, and on landing into the Caribbean where we were heading the aircraft would have been grounded and needed heavy engineering to make it airworthy, which wasn’t available at our destination so the aircraft would have been effectively stranded. Just for interest the 747-400 can dispatch with both wingtips removed but it cannot dispatch with just one removed , so quite a bit of work with lifting gear to pop those off.

The moral of the story is it doesn’t matter who reports damage as long as it gets reported and that report no matter how unlikely it sounds is taken seriously. 

 

Edited November 4, 2021 by jon b

[martin-w 3,289]

48 minutes ago, jon b said:

Personally as a captain the more eyes that look over the airframe the better, I’m not bothered where or who the report comes from, better safe than sorry.

 

Sounds like common sense to me. Have a cat point... 😺

[Chock 17,769]

Okay, to answer these questions. 'I'm not telling people what to look for', I'm just pointing out what I look for on a walkaround in a channel called hangar chat on a flight sim forum. This is not some training website for flight engineers, I just thought it was interesting and people might want to see it, so why don't you take a chill pill?

But since you do appear to be unnecessarily worked up about it, to clarify. It's worth bearing in mind too that since this was for a training video, I made a point of being fairly visibly thorough on the walkaround, although I tend to do that anyway, since passengers don't want to see someone diddy-bopping around the aeroplane not looking at things properly. So...

The static ports and pitot tubes are checked because they can be contaminated by stuff, for example, type IV de-icing fluid can accidentally overspray ontothese components and this can stop them operating. That stuff can can stay on at 500 mph, so it needs to be wiped off if it is on there, vehicles, the jet bridge and even personnel, can hit these things and damage them, someone did that the other day with their head on an ATR 72. In the past I have found a pitot tube which was overheating on an A330, it was getting so hot that it was leaving a black smoke stain on the fuselage, so these things can have technical issues.

When inspecting the engines and their pods, I am looking for damage to the fan blades themselves, missing bolts on the spinner cone (there should be six on a CFM 56 for example, different on the NEOs and other engines), evidence of icing or other potential hazards and possible damage. In the past I have found damage to fan blades, including once where the fan blade tip was bent outwards on a Thomas Cook A321, suggesting that something may have passed into the engine then ricocheted off a component to hit the fan blade from behind, which is unusual, especially for an A320 variant since it's normally 737s with their lower-mounted engine pods which would pick up something like that. But it does tell people who've never been up close to an engine how potentially susceptible to damage these things can be, and obviously on that occasion I got an engineer to look at it and told the crew too, since it may potentially have been out of balance (for those who don't know, the individual fan blades are balanced and numbered, and this one I found bent was up at the top, suggesting it was lighter than the others, so it could have lost some metal).

On any aeroplane with a stopover time of more than three hours, we chock all the wheels but this also means the aeroplane can have more engineering work done on it and so in cases like this, where the engines and other panels may have been opened, whilst I normally do check the underside panels to see they are fastened as I do on that video, on night stoppers in particular, such as the BA A320/321 from stand 42 at about 7am, I check the rear of the engine pod thoroughly as well. This is because in the past, I have found when we'd towed Thomas Cook Airbuses onto operational stands from remote stands where they were worked on, that tools and various other things had been placed in the rear cowling presumably as a convenient 'shelf' but then been forgotten. I've personally retrieved spanners and oil cans from these locations several times which engineers have left there. You don't need to be a rocket scientist to know that this would be dangerous/expensive if they got left there and then the engine was started up.

You are incorrect about the potable water panel not just popping open, because I had this happen yesterday: We had an Airbus A320 (British Airways) arrive on stand and we of course do an arrival check to make sure there is no damage (recently we had also been photographing this procedure on the arrival check for Aer Lingus aeroplanes owing to some damage over one of the cargo doors being found and this procedure was added as part of the investigation). During the arrival check, the only thing which was found was on the underside of the wing box fairing, a screw was loose, so we called out an engineer to take a look at it and he duly fastened it and indeed found that most of the other screws on that panel needed a bit of a tighten, we were joking that the panel was about end up on ebay after having fallen in somebody's back garden. So contrary to what some might think, although it's true that a (very few) engineers can be plonkers with us if we get them out to look at things which turn out to be nothing untoward and disturb them from having their cup of tea, most of them are quite friendly with us all and we with them too, with us all being helpful whereby they would rather us have them check stuff than ignore something which turned out to be serious, since it is after all their job. You can decide for yourself which category you fit into and whether you personally want to be arsy about that, but it's not about trying to steal someone's job or overstep any marks, it's about being conscientious and caring about ensuring aviation is safe.

So, being a 1 hour turnaround of a Heathrow Shuttle, the potable water is not always required to be topped off and such was the case yesterday, so nobody had touched the panel. Keep in mind that this plane had flown about 250 miles and landed, and at no point in that event had the panel opened, but upon doing the walkaround prior to departure, sure enough one of the panel's poppers was open. I am assuming it was vibration from the APU which shook it loose, and yes it may not have been fastened properly at Heathrow, but as I say, it had managed to stay shut for an entire flight to Manchester and through the stress of a landing and taxy to stand 42, so my guess is the popper is faulty. So, anyway, I reported that to the crew when headsetting it and the skipper said he'd not spotted it on his walkaround so he said thanks for spotting it. I in turn told him that we had popped it shut again, but recommended he get an engineer to give it a look at Heathrow. On the pushback, I made sure as we drove off that it was still shut.

Tires are checked because they can pick up FOD on the taxi in. in the past I have found a KLM 737 with a nail in the tire. The wear on tires can be misleading to a casual observer of course, what isn't obvious is that they are layered and this means you can see tires with what look like bald patches on them where the canvas can be seen. Whilst on a car this would mean an MOT failure, on most aeroplane tires there are several layers below, so whilst it might look bad, it most often is not. Nevertheless, if I find such a thing, I do let the crew know about it.

With regard to other damage, you are correct that most of it is stickered and logged in the cockpit book, but things can be missed and so if it is stickered we'd ignore it unless there was some potentially questionable aspect to it, but I can give you two examples where I have spotted stuff which then was inspected by an engineer at my request.

The first one was an Aer Lingus Airbus which had a panel up on the tailfin which looked like it was blown out from the inside; anyone who knows about the history of air accidents will be aware of what was actually the first Pan Am B747 ever to land in the UK, which then got sold to Japan Air Lines, which had a tail strike landing whilst with Pan Am. This tail strike was severe enough to have actually cracked the rear pressure bulkhead. This was repaired, however, the repair was not done properly; what is supposed to be done in such circumstances, is that a patch is put over the crack, then another patch is put over that, then another and so on, with the patches being laminated in such a way as to really make certain that the thing is as strong, if not stronger than it would have been before the damage. On this occasion it was simply patched with some riveted straps over the crack in the rear pressure dome. The repair held for a number of years, but with every subsequent cycle of pressurisation, it weakened in the same way a twig weakens when you bend it back and forth. Eventually the repair let go and the pressurised air in the cabin blew through and up into the unpressurised tail area, blowing most of the tailfin off the 747. It flew around Japan for an hour or so with the crew desperately trying to control it before finally crashing into a hillside, where all on board with the exception of one young girl, were killed.

So as you can imagine, seeing a panel which appeared to have been blown out from the inside on the tailplane had me thinking of this incident, and in all the A320s and 321s I've worked on over the years, I had never seen such damage, so obviously I made point of strongly recommending this be looked at. Similarly, I did an walkaround check on another Aer Lingus Airbus a few weeks ago, and found what looked like a dent right at the front of the tailfin about halfway up it. There was a sticker on the tail, but the sticker was a good few feet from the dent. Obviously it is difficult to closely examine something that high up, so I informed the pilot who happened to be on his walkaround and had not spotted it. We chatted for a while about it and he was glad I'd spotted it and we decided to get an engineer out with a platform to have a close look at it because it was not in the damage logbook, suggesting it may have been a recent bird strike. 

So you might take umbridge about non-union members touching the brooms of those not in the broom sweepers union lol, but I can assure you that on pretty much every occasion where I've found this stuff, the crews are actually grateful that I'm paying attention to stuff and really looking at the thing when I do a walkaround, instead of just bopping around it because it says I have to before headsetting the thing. I could tell you a lot of other things I've found on such occasions, but I wouldn't want you to have a heart attack from thinking I'm trying to steal your job. 

Ultimately, it is about safety and being conscientious to the point where, when I say to the crew that I've completed the walkaround and that everything is good, they can be sure that this is the case, because even if I didn't care about their safety, it's my voice on the CVR which is saying the thing is fine before it taxies out, and I'm sure the AAIB would be questioning me if (hopefully never) something untoward occurred as a result of me not paying attention. We all have a responsibility to make sure flying is safe when we work on aeroplanes.

And with regard to being qualified or not to check this stuff, we actually are suitably qualified. There are several exams we have to take regularly to be able to do this and we are also regularly audited on it as well to make sure we are doing it right (I've actually got to redo some of these in the next day or so because they are only current for 12 months). In addition to this, we often get bulletins with sign off sheets where we have to do this to ensure we are making such checks. Different airlines have sign off sheets for this too which are part of the dispatch procedure, whereby whoever did various task has to sign a sheet saying they made the checks; these are kept on station for a couple of weeks because the CAA can ask us to supply these should anything untoward occur. There is a lot of stuff we have to know. Now to be fair, I think I'm perhaps somewhat unusual in being more 'into' this stuff and probably knowing more about it than many who do the same job as me since I am a pilot and also worked producing technical documents for various aeroplanes in a past job, but even in spite of this, the idea that we've not got any clue about what we are looking at and are not qualified to check it, is nonsense.

Edited November 4, 2021 by Chock

[threexgreen 3,160]

He sure struck a nerve with some posting that. If I may share a brief anecdote: On a turnaround I worked on, me and another ground crew member coincidentally spotted a large cut in one of the main tires of an A320. It was so deep you could see the fibre underneath the outer layers. Also the tire was severely worn down in that spot. We notified the ramp agent who notified the Captain who then came looking and was like "oh shoot". He completely missed that on his workaround for whatever reason and there were no mechanics present checking the aircraft. He called maintenance and sent a picture who decided it was okay to fly it back to base where the tire would need to be replaced because there was no tire or mechanic available at my airport. Captain thanked everyone and went back to log it in the MX report.

Point is, no one apparently noticed and I'm surely going to check to see if the crew is aware if I see something that doesn't look right. That doesn't mean I'm trying to play mechanic; it's in the interest of everybody to keep an eye open when it comes to metal tubes flying through the air with people trapped in it.

[martin-w 3,289]

2 minutes ago, threegreen said:

Point is, no one apparently noticed and I'm surely going to check to see if the crew is aware if I see something that doesn't look right. That doesn't mean I'm trying to play mechanic; it's in the interest of everybody to keep an eye open when it comes to metal tubes flying through the air with people trapped in it.

 

I just don't see how anyone can deny the logic of the more people that check the better. I for one am very grateful that people like Alan and yourself do what they do. 

[Penzoil3 481]

Thanks Alan. Enjoyed it.

[jon b 2,083]

1 hour ago, martin-w said:

Have a cat point... 😺

I’m not familiar with those but thanks , most grateful  is it like bitcoin ,can I buy a new graphics card ?