The Contribution of Maintenance Human Factors to no Fault Founds on Aircraft Systems Engineering

In the context of aircraft engineering and maintenance, No Fault Found (NFF) is a chain of events that develops from a pilot experiencing a system malfunction with post-flight maintenance failing to reproduce the reported symptoms. Without any repair being undertaken, the malfunction may be experienced again on subsequent flights. This paper presents research into aircraft maintenance human factors that are prevalent when aircraft maintenance engineers interact with aircraft systems whilst undertaking fault diagnosis maintenance. The aim of the research is to develop a set of recommended guidelines that focus on mitigating human factors implications that arise from engineers interacting with complex systems when conducting maintenance tasks. This was achieved by undertaking an empirical study that involved a maintenance engineer survey and identification of a NFF case study where a structured interview was conducted. The study revealed that key resources such as aircraft test equipment, integrated onboard maintenance systems and technical maintenance manuals failed to support engineers when undertaking diagnosis tasks. The combined effect of the research findings is that aircraft maintenance personnel are unable to consistently undertake accurate and timely fault diagnosis tasks and this results in unwanted NFF occurrences.