Many of us put in several years as AME, anyone can easily understand that how easy is to punish an Engineer? We can have any shortcoming any where in the system i.e doing series of inspections to a final departure in line maintenance , blame it as a fault of engineer, punish them and get a reward of being a good manager, get set of going one more step further in career progression. Punish engineer for none of his but any one else faults. Never implement any methodology to curb it again in future. Close the case by punishing a poor engineer.
Lack of synchronisation and a phase difference of various departments at a time of departure may cause a lapse for which anyone from interfacing departments, eg a cleaner to commercial; toilet flusher from GSD to a helper in engineering, late arrival of crew to a missing baggage etc, be responsible but engineer must have an magical eye and a wand to curb such things in time else he will be taken for a task. Such incidents do give managerial cadres to sharpen their skill and an opportunity for adding another feather in their cap & profile.
Our stbd. engine is exposed to get damage any time by our loader as most of the trolley does not have lock neither it is placed properly and loading is done without supervision. Engineers keep praying that nothing wrong should happen unless he will be in trouble. No one bother for such lapses except him.
Allotment of multiple departures to engineers with a gap of 20 to 25 mts is an art of a good managerial technique but failing to attend and manage the departures is a fault of engineer as he is not responsive and liable to penalised for the delay.
GSD personnel who are responsible for flushing toilet & potable water often do not reach in time to the A/C but delay caused due this engineer will be questioned and he will be asked why he did not give call to Sic and/or foreman. Many a times he has to show the dialled call as a proof.
Delay due last minute bay change (No code is allotted), no feed back to engineers in this regard by sic is in vogue now a days. Any delay on this account, again engineer has to reply why he was not there in time, Sic is not responsible for this. It is you who has to find out from anywhere; where the A/C was parked finally.
Final fuel figure conveyed to engineer only after departure, providing fuel slip is out of fashion but delay caused due more, less fuel or late arrival of bowsers, engineer is answerable.
Incidents at the time of push back of the aircraft caused mainly due rest less pilots who pressurises down to tech/engineer to do it fast, use of low HP tow tractor, high speed taxying, improper communication between cockpit and crew, it will be engineer who will be de rostered first.
Working with improper equipments and tools with no light in night, any mishap due fatigue or untrained technicians, it is engineer whose licence will be suspended; no one is questioned for the lapses.
Aero bridge operators of GMR are naïve and untrained, damage caused to A/C doors due their mistakes, it will be engineer whose licence will be suspended.
Incidents caused due GMR operator failing to install GPU or GCU results in a circular advising engineer and technician to monitor & install above equipments and will be responsible for their lapses.
Ironically the same management never bother if we point out the faults of others for which aircraft was delayed above 5 mts to an hrs and say forget it, it was not ours. However engineers have to give explanation for a delay of even few single minutes and it will be wired so that entire airport will come to know about this delay.
May be many more such occasions in day to day job of an aviation engineer exist where he become victim of somebody else faults but this is a high time where management, regulatory body and HR must evolve with a system to reduce human fatigue and develop a technique to recognise system failure and take the corrective measures rather punishing who caused the failure.
