Aviation Legal Disputes: The Importance of Maintenance Logs as Evidence
In the world of aviation, maintenance logs play a crucial role in ensuring the safety and airworthiness of aircraft. These records provide a direct trail back to specific repairs, signed off by certified technicians, making them a primary source of evidence.
A well-maintained logbook is essential for several reasons. For instance, an aircraft with complete and accurate logs can retain its resale value, as potential buyers can verify its service history. On the other hand, an aircraft with missing logs will see its resale value plummet due to the uncertainty surrounding its maintenance history.
However, intentionally falsifying a record in a logbook is illegal under federal regulation and can turn the logs into a weapon against the person. For a plaintiff's attorney, incomplete or vague maintenance records can be used to paint a picture of a sloppy safety culture.
To ensure compliance, airworthiness, and legal defensibility, there are key requirements and best practices for maintaining aviation maintenance logs. These include:
- Accurate and detailed record entries: Each maintenance action, including preventive maintenance, must be recorded with a clear description of what was done and how.
- Proper logbook usage: Maintenance must be logged in the appropriate logbooks, e.g., airframe maintenance in the airframe logbook, powerplant maintenance in the powerplant logbook, or both if ambiguous (such as for the exhaust system).
- Completion details and signatures: Records must include the date of completion of the work, time since major overhaul if relevant, and the name, signature, certificate number, and type of certificate of the person performing and approving the maintenance.
- Compliance with regulations: All recording must comply with FAA regulations, specifically FAR 43.9 and 43.7 regarding who can perform and log maintenance.
- Legal defensibility and traceability: Logs must be maintained as regulated artifacts with controlled transformation, handling, and storage to ensure they are legally defensible during audits or investigations.
- Use of modern maintenance management systems: Digitized systems like PLANELOGIX are increasingly adopted to track every FAA-required maintenance action per part, automate record updates, ensure communication among maintenance teams, and maintain regulatory compliance efficiently.
Best practices to support these requirements include keeping descriptions precise and consistent, maintaining separate logs for different aircraft components, ensuring proper documentation of signatures and certifications, using validated and secure document management systems, regularly updating personnel on regulatory changes, and leveraging integrated data platforms.
Regular internal audits of maintenance logs can help verify AD compliance, track due dates, and catch small errors before they grow into serious liabilities. A clean and complete maintenance log can serve as a defense against negligence claims for aircraft owners, as it proves the required standard of care was met.
In the United States, federal regulation 14 CFR § 91.417 requires aircraft owners or operators to maintain detailed logbooks. During accident or incident investigations, NTSB investigators immediately secure the maintenance records to reconstruct what happened. Logbooks can help determine if a maintenance error was a contributing cause in an accident or incident.
In conclusion, maintaining accurate and detailed aviation maintenance logs is not just a legal requirement, but a vital step towards ensuring the safety and airworthiness of aircraft. It also provides a defense against negligence claims and helps maintain the resale value of an aircraft.
In the ever-evolving world of aviation, logs play a significant role in various industries, such as finance, technology, and even aerospace. Complete and accurate logs help maintain an aircraft's resale value by providing a verifiable service history to potential buyers, thereby ensuring the feasibility of securing loans or investments. On the other hand, incomplete or misleading logs may jeopardize an aircraft's resale value due to uncertainty surrounding its maintenance history and may even be used as evidence in legal disputes, particularly when allegations of sloppy safety culture are raised.
