The little clip that everyone forgets to check first

I swear every time I see a younger mechanic chasing a trim issue on a 737 they go straight for the big stuff like actuators or cables. But I can't tell you how many times over my 22 years it turned out to be that little spring clip on the tab actuator linkage just popped off. Happened again last week on a 2017 model at our hangar in Phoenix. Guy spent 2 hours troubleshooting before I walked over and snapped it back in place in 30 seconds. Why do you think newer training skips over these simple mechanical fail points?

2 comments

2 Comments

thomas8628h ago

Oh man, that hit close to home. I once spent an hour swapping a perfectly good actuator before realizing the clip was just sitting there in the bottom of the access panel staring at me like I was the dummy.

scott.grace9h ago

My first year at the old Continental hangar in Houston, I had a guy waste half a shift on a rudder trim issue. He had the schematics out, checking all the wiring. I just reached in and pushed that same little clip back where it belonged. The problem is these training programs now are all digital and computer based. They don't have you spend enough time actually handling the parts and seeing how these little things fail over time. You have to get your hands dirty to learn that stuff.