Going Electronic #15

Unapproved Parts

Here's a short story...

The FAA required commercial carriers to keep extraordinarily detailed maintenance records. Every time a part was changed out, it was noted in a maintenance log. In addition, the manufacturers, though not required to, maintained an exhaustive ship's record of every part originally on the plane, and who had manufactured it. All this paperwork meant that every one of the aircraft's one million parts could be traced back to its origin. If a part was swapped out from plane to another, that was known. If a part was taken off and repaired, that was known. Each part on a plane had a history of its own. Given enough time, they could find out exactly where this part had come from, who had installed it, and when.

That was from "Airframe", a novel by Michael Crichton. Now try this one...

Enzo Fregonese, 75 year old owner of Panaviation, an aircraft spare parts broker company located in Rome, Italy on February 26th was sentenced by the district court of Tempio Pausania in Sardegna to serve a 15-month jail sentence for distributing unapproved aircraft parts throughout the aviation industry? Two years ago, an unapproved parts notification issued by the Italian civil aviation authority ENAC alarmed the industry... German flag carrier Lufthansa was forced to change a hydraulic connector belonging to the thrust reverser for CF6 engines. Unfortunately for Lufthansa it could not recall where its technicians may have installed the total of five connectors it had received and that later were earmarked as suspected unapproved parts. The German civil aviation authority LBA's reaction was sharp: the suspicious part was ordered to be removed from "all engines in operation in Germany". So Lufthansa was forced to exchange it on the 150 engines belonging to its fleet of Boeing 747 and Airbus A300/310 aircraft. Italian flag carrier Alitalia was forced to remove more than 640 bearings within the landing gear assemblies of its MD fleet because of similar tracing problems? The traffic in unapproved parts has reached a criminal stage because of the high profits one can make in dealing such items. As a matter of fact, it is well known by court records that meanwhile even former drug trafficers deal in aeronautical parts...

That was from "Bogus Parts Broker Gets Jail", a news item in the September 2004 issue of Aviation Maintenance magazine.

Let WinAir be your protection...

If it makes more sense to you that these stories should be reversed - that the first one should be reality and the second belongs in a B-grade thriller - then join the satisfied WinAir users who have chosen their reality! WinAir allows them to trace every part back to where it came from, when they received it, what it cost, where it was installed, and when, and by whom - even for the simplest consumable. And this is not the result of tedious hours of entering data from hand-written paperwork, it happens automatically while WinAir helps them to manage their stores department, perform their maintenance, and increase their efficiency and profitability.

Don't get caught unprepared, get WinAir!