First story on the news on Channel 4 news in Dallas is that there have been seats have been coming loose on the 757s. It has happened on a few flights and up to 30 rows were not secured on one plane.

Here is a video.
http://www.myfoxdfw.com/video?clipId...opVideoCatNo=237008&autoStart=true

Maintenance for AA says it could be from outsourcing. Something doesn't seem right here...

[Edited 2012-10-01 16:08:59]

Just saw this on News12 Long Island.

Things just keep getting worse for AA....I know it's not a big thing per say, but I guarantee those passengers from the flight are wondering about AA's overall mainentance. Honestly I know I am.

The TWU blamed a contractor. American says its a problem with a type of seat, and not whether Union AA workers or outsourced non union workers installed them. If management is correct, then the Union was no better at spotting a design defect in the seat than was the contractor.

There could be several issues here. The fasteners are faulty, flawed or not up to specifications. They are being under/over toured, causing failures. Those in stalling the seats are not following proper instructions or they are flawed. You have workers installing the seats not doing their jobs perhaps as paid cheap. Poor supervision of installation workers.

Quoting milesrich (Reply 2): If management is correct, then the Union was no better at spotting a design defect in the seat than was the contractor.

I was gonna say....even if it was the contractors' fault, the mechanics should have noticed it.

Sounds like the Unions tactics are going to start hurting people.......

Andrew

What do you expect when you have a bunch of people who are NOT FAA certified to do maintenance work...do maintenance work?

There is no reason maintenance work on an airplane registered in the US not to have the maintenance done in the US.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnH_GRPocsU

Where is Flighty to scold us all for saying such destructive things?!?!

Quoting OOer (Reply 7): There is no reason maintenance work on an airplane registered in the US not to have the maintenance done in the US.

There are good points to be made about outsourced m/x, but this is not one of them. There is plenty of high quality m/x done overseas (and plenty of lousy maintenance done in the States, like the elevator rigging job on the ZV bird that crashed in CLT).

The union seems to forget they caused the crAAsh of Flight 191 at O'Hare. I love hearing all this crAAp about out sourced work.

Are we sure this isn't sabotage by rogue employees who think they are helping the union? When you have thousands of disgruntled employees, there are bound to be a few misguided ones.

Sabotage shouldn't be ruled out. How long does this go on before safety is compromised and criminal actions occur?

Interestingly, the new 757 seats are a customized version of the Weber 5751 designed by Weber for AA. Strangely, the new config 738s, which use the same model of seat, are not affected. Perhaps the tracks on the 738 are different than those on the 752.

Also, DL's Weber 5751s are not affected.

[Edited 2012-10-01 19:42:08]

Quoting CO777DAL (Thread starter): Maintenance for AA says it could be from outsourcing. Something doesn't seem right here...

I've been hearing a lot of discrepancies with AA's maintenance staff. What's going on here? Is there monetary issues going on or something in this department?

Quoting 1337Delta764 (Reply 13): Interestingly, the new 757 seats are a customized version of the Weber 5751 designed by Weber for AA. Strangely, the new config 738s, which use the same model of seat, are not affected. Perhaps the tracks on the 738 are different than those on the 752.

This is what I'm curious to know... are the affected aircraft ones that have been reconfigured with the new seats and/or were these aircraft recently reconfigured with MCE? The two incidents reported in the news involved rows that would have been affected by MCE. That could be the reason why this is suddenly popping up. I would wager it has far more to do with that than any kind of sabotage. Remember, AA mechanics put their family members on these airplanes every single day so it is highly, highly unlikely that they are compromising the safety of the a/c.

Who is doing the work on MCE? AA maintenance, or TIMCO?

Quoting thegoldenargosy (Reply 10): The union seems to forget they caused the crAAsh of Flight 191 at O'Hare. I love hearing all this crAAp about out sourced work.

So by your faulty logic when a plane crashes due to pilot error and the pilot is in a union, it's the unions fault?... The union doesn't fly airplanes or turn wrenches..

Quoting spiritair97 (Reply 4):

And Pray Tell?? Just How would the mechanics have noticed this problem without a cabin Service Check Looking for that problem?? It's pretty Obvious You're Not a MECHANIC. Even at United where we outsource a LOT. If a vendor does something Shady or incorrectly as they do once in a great while , unless the problem is brought to light on a later inspection we would have NO WAY of knowing as none of us can See the outsourced work package to know WHAT the Vendors were working on. It's not OUR problem until it's reported where we have 2 choices, FIX it?? Or, route he airplane BACK to the vendor to rework what they screwed up in the first place.. And? That's not up TO the mechanic but senior management. The best We as mechanics can do is Drop a Dime to he FAA. But in even THAT a Mechanic could lose his Job so it's a crap shoot either way.

Quoting thegoldenargosy (Reply 10): The union seems to forget they caused the crAAsh of Flight 191 at O'Hare. I love hearing all this crAAp about out sourced work.

No, that was caused by the management who told maintenance personnel to use faulty procedures.

Quoting strfyr51 (Reply 17): And Pray Tell?? Just How would the mechanics have noticed this problem without a cabin Service Check Looking for that problem?? It's pretty Obvious You're Not a MECHANIC. Even at United where we outsource a LOT. If a vendor does something Shady or incorrectly as they do once in a great while , unless the problem is brought to light on a later inspection we would have NO WAY of knowing as none of us can See the outsourced work package to know WHAT the Vendors were working on. It's not OUR problem until it's reported where we have 2 choices, FIX it?? Or, route he airplane BACK to the vendor to rework what they screwed up in the first place.. And? That's not up TO the mechanic but senior management. The best We as mechanics can do is Drop a Dime to he FAA. But in even THAT a Mechanic could lose his Job so it's a crap shoot either way.

Agreed..When I worked for NWA we used to get a/c from Dalfort in Dallas and I forget the name of the other place we did it in Dothan Ala. We would have so many write ups coming out of those places we would have to spend days working all the bugs out of them, sometimes weeks. But if the pilots didn't write it up we wouldn't find it until something happened much like the AA seat deal. But to be fair not all outsourcing equals bad maintenance. I have found the Asian and a lot of European MRO work to be quite good. Actually the MRO's in the US have the worst that I have seen in quality.

couldn't be bothered to read all of this, so sry if mentioned before... I just love how Fox always try to sensationalize "small" problems. I know it's unsafe, but still. And also interesting that they don't know their models at all... In the video "AA responds to seat problems" the 4m 30s video, a 737 with winglets is shown when they mention "it was on a plane like the model you see here bla bla.... Always so illinformed.

Dang, what is it that y'all don't understand about aircraft maintenance? I am a line mech. who flies all over to fix out of service aircraft, my mother and father fly, my friends fly, YOU fly. There is not a conspiracy here. The statements some of y'all are making is that mechanics are criminals/murderers. Stop it already. You are stepping on my toes and my fellow mechanics toes.

Unions do not control our dedication to our craft. Never, ever. If it got bad enough I and all of us would just quit and go work somewhere else. I don't work for AA but if I did I would do my job exactly as specified by the maintenance manual and company procedures.

I have also worked at MROs. They do try to do things as cheap as possible, BUT they (the two I worked at) would never compromise the airworthiness of the aircraft or the safety of the folks flying on that aircraft.

As I said in another post, I've been in aircraft maintenance for 32 years. I have never seen a shortcut taken that would sacrifice safety.

This is NOT a situation of sabotage.

Quoting danielkandi (Reply 20): couldn't be bothered to read all of this, so sry if mentioned before... I just love how Fox always try to sensationalize "small" problems. I know it's unsafe, but still. And also interesting that they don't know their models at all... In the video "AA responds to seat problems" the 4m 30s video, a 737 with winglets is shown when they mention "it was on a plane like the model you see here bla bla.... Always so illinformed.

It's not just FOX all the news networks pretty much get it wrong..Kind of amazes me that they most of them do not have have a real expert on staff that know a/c and aviation since aviation can be so newsworthy especially in an incident or accident. Cracks me up when I will pick on FOX for now they go to Jon Scott who has a private pilots license as their expert. But to be fair they all do it.

Quoting pvjin (Reply 18): No, that was caused by the management who told maintenance personnel to use faulty procedures.

How do you tell them to intentionally use procedures that don't work?

And what's your source?

Quoting OOer (Reply 7): What do you expect when you have a bunch of people who are NOT FAA certified to do maintenance work...do maintenance work?

...Yes, there are other aviation authorities besides the FAA, you know...

Quoting T prop (Reply 16): So by your faulty logic when a plane crashes due to pilot error

AA 191 was due to pilot error... You learn something new every day! (Are you getting confused with the A300?)

Quoting bueb0g (Reply 24): AA 191 was due to pilot error... You learn something new every day! (Are you getting confused with the A300?)

He is talking about your logic. If AA191 which indeed crashed because of incorrect maintenance procedures was fault of the union where those maintenance personnel belonged to, are also crashes caused by pilot error fault of pilots union?

Ouch!


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Quote: AA 191 was due to pilot error

Uhh, I'm pretty sure an engine falling off started that chain of events

Maintenance blames the contractor, of course because if you are not in the union you obviously don't know how to tighten a bolt to spec, they teach toy that in the 1st day of union training.......

Quoting milesrich (Reply 2): American says its a problem with a type of seat

It is not the seat it is the installer.

Quoting milesrich (Reply 2): If management is correct, then the Union was no better at spotting a design defect in the seat than was the contractor.

There is no design defect. No one else has problems with this seat. These 757's probably all have one thing in common and that is the shop that installed the new seats. And the non certified interior people that installed them.

Quoting ltbewr (Reply 3): There could be several issues here. The fasteners are faulty, flawed or not up to specifications

Do you know how a seat is installed?

Quoting 1337Delta764 (Reply 13): . Perhaps the tracks on the 738 are different than those on the 752.

Seat track is uniform.


If AA's 757's are being outsourced now for the seats most MRO's have interior crews that are non certified and low payed.

Quoting bueb0g (Reply 24): AA 191 was due to pilot error...

I hope your joking man!! AA191 crashed due to pilot error? really? Im not even going to get into the details about that crash. Very sad that an aviation enthusiast on these forums would even say that. You know damn well what caused that crashed.

Quoting thegoldenargosy (Reply 10): The union seems to forget they caused the crAAsh of Flight 191 at O'Hare. I love hearing all this crAAp about out sourced work

The procedure they used was based on AA and FAA approved procedures.

Quoting TrnsWrld (Reply 29):

If you look more closely you can see that he just misunderstood earlier post and did not mean that AA191 would really have been caused by pilot error.

Quoting ckfred (Reply 32): You couldn't pay me to fly anyone but AA. A friend of mine is an AA pilot, and he still believes that AA takes better care of its airplanes than any other airline.

  

As a tech for a competing airline I would have no problem flying on an AA jet.

Really? All of a sudden seats become unsecured???? hummm. multiple flights within a week? There have been multiple 757s (at least 20 prior to june) and none reported prior to all this AA operational nonsense. We have seen in all industries and it only takes one pissed off person to do the damage.

737tdi: I feel your anger, especially when you perform your outstanding job to ensure our safety. But like I said, this CAN be a result of ONE dysfunctional person trying to get away with something to represent outsourcing is not the way to go. I wouldn't be saying this if it was an isolated happening.

Quoting ltbewr (Reply 3): The fasteners are faulty, flawed or not up to specifications

That very well could be true. You may have people who installed the seats correctly but the fastener is not up to par. I have seen faulty tools and parts that supposably met a standard. Back when I worked for Ford doing warranty claims analysis we would try to figure out what caused a failure, if they were happening on a regular basis. We could figure out problems right down to the specific shift at a plant if we needed to. For a while we were having timing chain guide problems on 4.0 liter V-6 and we determined the problem was in the engineering and nothing to do with labor, outsourcing, or material. Another time we have porous cylinder heads and the problem was found to be in the aluminum alloy provided to the casting plant. It took a while for all of the problems to show up so that could be happening at AA too.

Quoting ckfred (Reply 32): You couldn't pay me to fly anyone but AA. A friend of mine is an AA pilot, and he still believes that AA takes better care of its airplanes than any other airline.

I am sure they are just fine. I flew on NW a lot during their bankruptcy and TWA before that. Are they safe? Are they not? I am not in any position to say I am a car mechanic not an airplane mechanic but I know safety is a top priority at AA and just about any reputable carrier.

Quoting windy95 (Reply 28): Do you know how a seat is installed?

Doesn't matter... It has fasteners of some sort and they could be faulty.

Quoting tonytifao (Reply 34): Really? All of a sudden seats become unsecured???? hummm. multiple flights within a week?

Sometimes it takes a while before stuff fails. I would want to know when the seats were installed and by whom. If more and more seats break and they were installed at different times and by different work crews then you may be looking a procedure problem or a faulty part problem. I know GM is having problems with a particular automatic transmission pump locking up at under 1000 miles, due to debris ingestion. About 20 of them have happened a year for the last three years and all came from the same plant. The transmission is made in two plants with the pump from the same supplier. Since the problem is in one plant they are looking that plant over with a fine tooth comb. I bring this up because the AA seat thing may very difficult problem to solve and likely isn't as simple as working screwing up.

If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck...it's probably some disgrunteled employees...Stranger things have happened.
Did anyone check Ahmadinejads pockets for seat anchors?

Quoting soon7x7 (Reply 36): it's probably some disgrunteled employees

It could be, but I doubt it is organized or sanctioned by the union or any large group of employees. When you have labor action you want to show how valuable your labor is. Doing crap work gives management more reasons to not value your labor. Last year when the maintenance workings were renegotiating their contract they were doing better and more work than usual to try and show management they were valuable, if they started to cut corners the management would have had a good reason to outsource them. I am not a big fan of labor unions (even though I am in one) but I have learned that you never want to give ammunition to shoot your cause in the foot. Unions members may start to "work by rule", which means they won't do anything but what they are required to do and work only the times and hours specified in an old contract (assuming they are working on an expired contract) which some people may see as doing a half ass job, but they actually doing exactly what they are supposed to do and nothing more or less.

I'm sure they can find a way to blame this on the pilots, too.

Quoting timaay419 (Reply 26): Ouch!

The Cameraman or AA?         

Quoting soon7x7 (Reply 36): Did anyone check Ahmadinejads pockets for seat anchors?

  

Quoting XFSUgimpLB41X (Reply 38): I'm sure they can find a way to blame this on the pilots, too.

Now that is quite outrageous. I think it's a number of things....which people refuse to acknowledge themselves when they know they're doing something wrong. That's when management needs to step in....but I guess it's not that easy.

Quoting XFSUgimpLB41X (Reply 38):

If it was somehow caught by a pilot before the flight and written up everyone here would be screaming bloody murder because the flight was "delayed for a loose seat."

We'd be hearing about work actions, union thugs, blah blah blah.

Instead we have accusations of sabotage by union mechanics in about 3 posts. Ironic considering initial indications is that this mistake was done by outsourced labor.

Quoting norcal (Reply 40): Ironic considering initial indications is that this mistake was done by outsourced labor.

Outsourcing itself may contribute to angst among employees/management. Has before...

Quoting soon7x7 (Reply 41): Outsourcing itself may contribute to angst among employees/management. Has before...

Ok, but if it turns out the seats were installed incorrectly by outsourced maintenance how is that the fault of AA maintenance?

I know it's A-net so some obscure justification will be used to blame the unions if it does in fact turn out to be bad work from the outsources.

Don't know who's at fault any more than the next guy but the timing of the loose-seat debacle certainly seems curious...no?

Find it tough to believe that 30 seats were wrongly fitted or not locked in the track.This would have shown up immedietly on a check.
Looks more like a deliberate attempt.

As if we need ANOTHER reason not to fly AA? This sounds like sabotage to me. Anything else seems a little far fetched.

Quoting spiritair97 (Reply 4): I was gonna say....even if it was the contractors' fault, the mechanics should have noticed it.

... another enlightened quote from spiritair97 ...

Quoting stratosphere (Reply 22): It's not just FOX all the news networks pretty much get it wrong..Kind of amazes me that they most of them do not have have a real expert on staff that know a/c and aviation since aviation can be so newsworthy especially in an incident or accident. Cracks me up when I will pick on FOX for now they go to Jon Scott who has a private pilots license as their expert. But to be fair they all do it.

  

You can't even rely on major news outlets for accurate aviation reporting, because all of them are wrong more often than they're right. It's ridiculous.

With regards to the entire issue, I think that it's too early to point a finger at anyone. Time will tell who's responsible for this issue. If AA can trace maintenance/seat installation on these aircraft back to a single shop, then I think it's pretty obvious where the blame lies.

Of course, all the news outlets are going to be screaming their heads off about this until the cows come home. Any problem that AA faces in the near future will be amplified by these news organizations.

What a bloody mess.

Quoting bueb0g (Reply 24): AA 191 was due to pilot error... You learn something new every day! (Are you getting confused with the A300?)

Quoting TrnsWrld (Reply 29): I hope your joking man!! AA191 crashed due to pilot error? really? Im not even going to get into the details about that crash. Very sad that an aviation enthusiast on these forums would even say that. You know damn well what caused that crashed.

If I remember correctly, as far as the pilots are concerned for 191, it's been proved that they followed procedures "by the book" as far as how they were trained by AA to fly the 10's. It was only after the crash did they discover that similar to that of the A300 crash in NY, the DC10 pilots had faulty emergency procedural training in a situation such as the one the encountered. Evidence showed, only later, had they had increased thrust in lieu of decreasing per procedures, they may have been able to save the plane from the deadly stall caused by loss of hydraulic fluid/pressure in the affected wing.

Those pilots were rightly cleared of any wrong-doing!

Quoting OOer (Reply 7): What do you expect when you have a bunch of people who are NOT FAA certified to do maintenance work...do maintenance work? There is no reason maintenance work on an airplane registered in the US not to have the maintenance done in the US.

Plenty of non-certified mechanics working at American Airlines, there is no FAR that requires it. The FAR's do require certain persons to be certified to do certain things...please look at the FAA's definition of person in FAR part 1 before you get to excited.

Quoting qqflyboy (Reply 15): Who is doing the work on MCE? AA maintenance, or TIMCO?

Timco in BOS doing the 757's and I forget the name of the contractor in SAN doing the 763's, there is another thread on Anet about the SAN operation.

Quoting pvjin (Reply 18): No, that was caused by the management who told maintenance personnel to use faulty procedures.

Actually the crew doing the work came up with the idea and management failed to direct them to follow the mainenance manual. Either way it was managments responsibility because they knew about it and did nothing.

Quoting 737tdi (Reply 21): Dang, what is it that y'all don't understand about aircraft maintenance? I am a line mech. who flies all over to fix out of service aircraft, my mother and father fly, my friends fly, YOU fly. There is not a conspiracy here. The statements some of y'all are making is that mechanics are criminals/murderers. Stop it already. You are stepping on my toes and my fellow mechanics toes. Unions do not control our dedication to our craft. Never, ever. If it got bad enough I and all of us would just quit and go work somewhere else. I don't work for AA but if I did I would do my job exactly as specified by the maintenance manual and company procedures. I have also worked at MROs. They do try to do things as cheap as possible, BUT they (the two I worked at) would never compromise the airworthiness of the aircraft or the safety of the folks flying on that aircraft. As I said in another post, I've been in aircraft maintenance for 32 years. I have never seen a shortcut taken that would sacrifice safety. This is NOT a situation of sabotage.

There are some tensions in BOS between the TWU and management about a contractor coming on the property to do the work right along side TWU workers. I woulndn't go as far to say there is sabotage, I find it hard to believe anyone in the TWU would do something like that.

Some of the best mechanics I have seen have been at the MRO's, but AA has some really good mechanic's also. Where you work isn't an indication of how good of a mechanic you are. AA is providing all the resorces to accomplish the work so that isn't an issue either.

Quoting bueb0g (Reply 24): AA 191 was due to pilot error... You learn something new every day! (Are you getting confused with the A300?)

Maybe you should have used google before posting this....just sayin'

Quoting windy95 (Reply 28): Seat track is uniform.

This is the only correct thing I see in your post.

Quoting charlienorth (Reply 30): The procedure they used was based on AA and FAA approved procedures.

Not true, see above. Its been covered very well by a tv show no less. Very accurate. AA uses that accident in its human factors training to specifically reinforce the "dirty dozen".

Quoting ckfred (Reply 32): You couldn't pay me to fly anyone but AA. A friend of mine is an AA pilot, and he still believes that AA takes better care of its airplanes than any other airline.

AA does have top notch maintenance from planning to performance.

Quoting tonytifao (Reply 34): Really? All of a sudden seats become unsecured???? hummm. multiple flights within a week? There have been multiple 757s (at least 20 prior to june) and none reported prior to all this AA operational nonsense. We have seen in all industries and it only takes one pissed off person to do the damage.

Any incident is of its own merit, many factors contribute to the outcome. No way to tell what happened until the investigation is complete. I can see how it could go undetected until the point where it moves. The report in the video says they found an additional 30 rows not properly secured but only one row actually moved. If that is true, it is truely amazing there wasn't more that moved.

Quoting XFSUgimpLB41X (Reply 38): I'm sure they can find a way to blame this on the pilots, too.

No way, maintenance owns this one. I like your humor though.

Quoting flyhossd (Reply 42): He said "faulty." There is a difference. AA (and other DC-10 operators) chose to change engines with the mount/strut/pylon already attached. When this assembly was bumped - it caused the pylon/mount to crack which lead to the strut's failure and the engine fell off the wing during take off.

Actually the forklift bled down causing it to prestress the fitting and then it was hit causing more damage. Both were contributing factors. Its all in the report.

Quoting flyhossd (Reply 42): It was not approved by the manufacturer (Douglas) and after the accident, AA's procedure was changed to the more labor intensive method specified by Douglas. From the "Probable Cause:" "...deficiencies in FAA surveillance and reporting systems which failed to detect and prevent the use of improper maintenance procedures..."

True Douglas did not approve the procedure. I don't think the FAA's oversite was robust enough back then from everything I've learned about their processes prior to ATOS. But what do I know, I was chasing girls in school back then.

N737AA

AA has just announced the cause of the seat disconnect as a "faulty saddle clamp," and noted that these clamps are found on 47 757s currently flying. Full statement below.

Quote: “Overnight, a group of engineers, tech crew chiefs and inspectors from American’s Tulsa Maintenance Base evaluated airplanes at New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport while other airplanes were inspected at other facilities around the country. Originally, American planned to evaluate the seats on eight Boeing 757 airplanes, but out of an abundance of caution, the decision was made to proactively evaluate a total of 47 Boeing 757 airplanes that have the same model Main Cabin seats with a common locking mechanism. Thirty-six airplanes were evaluated by maintenance personnel overnight and another 11 airplanes will be evaluated to finish the inspection. American’s internal investigation has focused on one of three types of Main Cabin seats on the 757s and how the rows of these three seats fit into the track that is used to secure the rows to the floor of the airplanes. Our maintenance and engineering teams have discovered that the root cause is a saddle clamp improperly installed on the foot of the row leg. These clamps were used on only 47 of our 102 Boeing 757 airplanes.” Huguley says the issue “does not seem to be tied to any one maintenance facility or one workgroup. The FAA is aware of our internal review and its findings, as well as the steps we are taking to proactively address the issue. We continue to work closely with the FAA.” She adds: “American regrets the inconvenience that this maintenance issue may have caused customers on affected flights. Safety is – and always will be – American’s top concern.”

Source: http://blog.apex.aero/cabin-interior...seat-supplier-757s-involved-probe/