Dear Mr Arpey,

Which over-paid, under-educated executive went babbling to the Wall St Journal about rogue mechanics "harassing" the airline by documenting legitimate lightning strikes??? I guess he would prefer mechanics to ignore burn marks on the sides of aircraft. Obviously, the FAA didn't buy AA's ridiculous defense about needing to gut the critical lightning strike inspection to prevent "a small group of activist union members" from paralyzing a giant corporation. The truth is AA was caught with its clothes off - - compromising the narrow margin of safety for the sake of scheduling by the excellent reporting of the Wall St Journal's Andy Pasztor.

Why does JFK find a disproportional number of lightning strikes??? This question was never asked internally. It would have been enlightening, but for a corporation hell bent on productivity at all cost, it was best left unanswered, and whittle down the lightning strike inspection instead. Management labeled mechanics at JFK as trouble makers and NOT team players. At times it sounded as we were even being accused of summoning the lightning from the sky for kicks.

Since you won't ask the aforementioned question, I'll just give you the answer. AA never actively trained mechanics on what a lightning strike looked like or where to find it. The company had an inspection procedure in place but what actually constituted a lightning strike was a mystery. This is why I didn't start writing up the ubiquitous lightning strikes until 15 years into my career. It wasn't AA's training policy which alerted me to the signs of lightning damage but a sharp-eyed co-worker. Then it became a tutorial . . . mechanics instructing mechanics.

My argument has always been if mechanics in Chicago, Dallas, even LaGuardia (next door to JFK) knew the tell-tale signs of lightning damage, those 62 lightning strikes referenced in the Wall St Journal article would have been evenly distributed throughout the AA system, probably avoiding delays. But AA's instinct is to make aviation less safe by eliminating an inspection practiced by every other US carrier.

When the company altered the criteria for lightning strike inspection, it literally went on the talk-show circuit to advise mechanics of the change to avoid delays. Now that the lightning strike inspection has been revised yet again, apparently by order of the FAA, AA has been silent on the subject - - no training bulletins, no mention in frequent crew meetings by management, no updates on JetNet. Rather, mechanics must learn of the change from the foremost authority of aircraft maintenance, the Wall St Journal.

Mr Arpey, there are serious problems in the Maintenance & Engineering division!!!

Sincerely,
G Santos
JFK mechanic
AMR shareholder