Narrative:

I started my day shift work by being assigned gates X and Y. After review of conditions I proceeded to walk to a B737 aircraft at gate Y to physically check on the condition and status of the aircraft and it's logbook. Upon entering the aircraft I was witness seven ramp people in the cockpit and forward galley trying to apply electrical power to the aircraft that was sitting there without any electrical power supplied by either the APU or ground power. The ramp personnel were reconfiguring cockpit switches without success and were confused to say the least. I asked them what they were doing in the cockpit and why they were also checking the legal sign-off of the logbook. They said that they were being trained to move aircraft. This aircraft was due to leave within the hour on a live trip and our midnight maintenance crew had legally signed-off the airworthiness of this aircraft; only to have it tampered with by unskilled ramp personnel. A very unsafe condition existed by having this crew reconfigure the aircraft and it's logbook. The end result was that electrical power was turned on by them and unknown systems tampered with. Electrical power was removed and then selected 'on' during their time there. There was no communication from this group to me or our maintenance department for clearance to do this. [Recommend to] review the procedures that are changing at our air carrier with regard to allowing other non-licensed employees to have the ability to reconfigure an aircraft and it's systems without communicating with the aircraft technician and the associated aircraft maintenance department.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: A Technician reports witnessing Ramp Personnel in the cockpit and forward galley area trying to apply electrical power to a live B737 aircraft. They were very confused while reconfiguring cockpit switches without success. No paperwork was signed by any ramp person indicating their activities in the cockpit. Technician believes the Mechanic's sign-off and the Airworthiness Release was compromised.

Narrative: I started my day shift work by being assigned Gates X and Y. After review of conditions I proceeded to walk to a B737 aircraft at Gate Y to physically check on the condition and status of the aircraft and it's logbook. Upon entering the aircraft I was witness seven ramp people in the cockpit and forward galley trying to apply electrical power to the aircraft that was sitting there without any electrical power supplied by either the APU or Ground Power. The ramp personnel were reconfiguring cockpit switches without success and were confused to say the least. I asked them what they were doing in the cockpit and why they were also checking the legal sign-off of the logbook. They said that they were being trained to move aircraft. This aircraft was due to leave within the hour on a live trip and our midnight maintenance crew had legally signed-off the airworthiness of this aircraft; only to have it tampered with by unskilled ramp personnel. A very unsafe condition existed by having this crew reconfigure the aircraft and it's logbook. The end result was that electrical power was turned on by them and unknown systems tampered with. Electrical power was removed and then selected 'On' during their time there. There was no communication from this group to me or our maintenance department for clearance to do this. [Recommend to] Review the procedures that are changing at our Air Carrier with regard to allowing other non-licensed employees to have the ability to reconfigure an aircraft and it's systems without communicating with the Aircraft Technician and the associated Aircraft Maintenance department.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.