Ethics in the aviation industry

    In my eyes ethics in the aviation industry should be focused on safety of flight along with over customer satisfaction. On a personal lever I have seen what happens when safety of flight is overlooked or thrown out of the window entirely. This can result in damage to equipment, loss of life, and a total loss of customer trust and satisfaction. This point of view was well stated by Zuehlke in his article about ethics "Ethical issues aren't always life and death decisions. They include privacy, confidentiality, honesty, and fairness. the actions we should encompass taking responsibility, meeting obligations, telling the truth, keeping promises, and avoiding harming people" (Zuehlke, 2005, pa. 4).



    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    For example, if someone was doing maintenance on an aircraft, messed up on a torque but did not bring it to anyone's attention for the sake of keeping an aircraft in the air, the inspectors might not know where to look and miss it. The aircraft is blessed off as airworthy, and flies. Fast forward to several flights later it crashes because that nut which wasn't torqued down came off, creating FOD and destroys lets say the flight controls in the left wing on take off and no one makes it out. would you want to fly on that airliner again? I surly wouldn't even consider it. Now imagine the millions of dollars lost because they lost trust in their customers because of one nut a maintainer did not torque down and didn't let anyone know after the fact.



    The definition of ethics, according to Merriam-Webster, is "The discipline dealing with what is good and bad and with moral duty and obligation" (Merriam-Webster, 2020). This should be kept in the backs of the heads of everyone involved with the aerospace industry to prevent loss of equipment, injury, and or loss of life and to keep the trust of their customers too keep them coming back.



    

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Comments

  1. Steven LivingstonAugust 16, 2020 at 11:12 AM

    Diego,
    Your blog was an interesting take on ethics in aviation. Making it about safety of flight and customer satisfaction is a great way to look at it. The ethical decisions that must be made depending on the situation is critical to both safety and customer satisfaction. Your example explains exactly why ethics is aviation is very important not just to the safety of passengers but also the companies bottom line. Yes, some things might cost more upfront to do it the ethical way but in the long run its safer and will protect their investments. When the aircraft is safer to fly more people will chose to fly. Thus having people that practice ethics in the aviation industry will keep the industry a safer place for all customers and workers.
    V/R
    Steven Livingston

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Diego AlamedaAugust 17, 2020 at 2:31 PM

      Steven,
      As a crew chief on the AH-64E myself I can tell you a story of where I had to place safety of flight over money saving. One day we were working on an aircraft with corroded pitch housing and we had the new ones in already (I'm not sure what the deal was about money when the old one could get turned in for credit anyway) but an engineer told us that the old ones were still good and within tolerance despite looking like Swiss cheese. at this point I was frustrated cause putting a potential damaged part back on a helicopter rotor head could spell disaster down the road. So before everyone went into a meeting to discuss what to do I said as loud as I could "if we put the old pitch housings on I will red X this aircraft on every PMD for the same reason because I'm not putting my pilots in a broken aircraft". finally after about 30 minutes of debating they finally choose to put the new ones on and I was able to sleep that night knowing I probably prevented an accident. A lot of times in aviation, military or commercial, money becomes the main decision about cutting corners over safety of flight and that's not the right answer. Safety of flight should always come first.

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