The International Cessna 170 Association

OK..so you see and read a logbook entry in your aircraft maintenance records (logbooks) that a known problem was addressed….and supposedly “cured”.

At your OWN RISK…!!

Chalk was the oldest airline in U.S. history. Their certified and FAA supervised maiintenance dept, in an effort to keep the airplanes flying…. decided to accept previous written records… and real people with real lives…. Died.

Don’t let this happen to YOU. Simply because a “crack” was “repaired” or “addressed”…. does not mean it was FIXED.

“Three stop drill holes were located in the area of the doubler repair to the lower skin at right WS 34. The stop drill holes showed that the skin crack was detected at least three times before the doublers were applied and that the crack had extended twice from the location of a previous stop drill hole. Continued crack growth from a stop drill hole is indicative of an underlying structural problem that was not properly addressed in previous maintenance actions.”

(The fact that this occurred to a seaplane operator is no excuse. If you see a “stop-drilled” crack…If you see a “doubler” which supposedly strengthens (and hides) a previous repair.THINK ABOUT that!)

https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/Acc ... AR0704.pdf

50+ year old airplane, spending its life in a corrosive environment, modified with limited engineering, operated by an airline with an inadequate and ineffective maintenance organization, and overseen by a safety agency (FAA) that either didn’t know what they were looking at or worse, looked the other way. What a sad story. I’ll bet Chalks had some overworked and dedicated mechanics who kept those old birds flying but couldn’t see the big picture. No decision making infrastructure to back them up. Reminds me of Value Jet and some of the fire fighting operators who had similar disasters. And you’re right a maintenance record is no assurance that the person who made it did the right thing.

Classic issue in the Comanche world. There is an extensive 1000 hour landing gear AD that requires dimensional checks on many parts. It is part 2 of the AD. Part 1 requires the landing gear bungees be replaced every three years regardless of time flown. There are a number of airplanes found where part one is accomplished and the entire AD is signed off as complied with, yet there’s no clear evidence or documentation that part two was ever done.

At least that’s the way it was when I owned one in the 90’s