Coordination and safety behavior in aircraft maintenance

Commercial aviation maintenance related incidents reported to the Aviation Safety Report System were investigated focusing on coordination problems. Among 1000 analyzed reports from a two-year period, 98 internal coordination issues within the maintenance team, and 24 external coordination issues between maintenance and other departments were discovered. Frequently established problematic included: not delivering information, sending wrong information and lack of responsibility. Most conflicts were solved by competing (or accommodating) behavior, such that one party prevailed over the other party’s opinion. Coordination problems have the potential to render many necessary safety procedures ineffective. This study identifies coordination problems that are potential sources impairing safety procedures in aircraft maintenance such as misapplication of minimum equipment list items, missing inspections, logbook entry failures, and wrong parts installation.