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Can we talk about that wiring issue at O'Hare last Tuesday?
I was out at O'Hare doing a routine pitot-static check on a 737 when the lead tech pulled me over to look at a nav unit that was acting up. Someone had used unshielded wire for a critical GPS antenna line and the interference was messing with the approach system. The whole thing came down to a lazy splice job from a previous shift that nobody caught during the walkthrough. I spent three hours rewiring that section with proper coax and shielding tape. Now I double check every single cable run even if the job ticket says it's just a swap. Has anyone else run into shady work like this from contract crews at big hubs?
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martinez.paul14d ago
...and that's exactly the kind of crap I saw at Newark last spring. Some contract crew had spliced a 12 gauge power wire into a sensor line for the fuel quantity system. Took us two days to figure out why the readings were bouncing all over the place. The splice was hidden behind a panel that nobody opens unless they're tracing a fault. I rewired the whole section myself, ran new shielded cable from the tank to the cockpit. People cut corners everywhere, especially at the big hubs where they're rushing through planes. Makes you wonder what else is buried in those bundles.
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aaronroberts14d ago
Man, I’ve seen the same crap. Was working a 737 at DFW a couple years back and found a spliced ground wire in the APU harness that was just twisted together with electrical tape. No crimp, no solder, nothing. Took half a shift to track down why the APU kept dropping offline mid taxi. Some people just don't care.
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laura_wilson4d ago
Ditch the trust in the walkthrough, I treat every handoff like it's hiding something now. That Newark fuel sensor story hits close, I've seen similar stuff buried behind line-replaceable units that only get pulled during deep faults. If the paperwork says "swap only," I still trace every visible run before I button anything up, because once you've eaten a three hour rewire, you never assume again.
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