Narrative:

I work in a 145 repair station as a hangar mechanic; and I was asked to go to assist in a swashplate change on an as350b3 that was stuck on the hospital landing pad due to a swashplate shim protruding from the center of the swashplate. The repair took 11 days. We had been working very long hours (10-14hrs daily) in very hot weather all outside on top of the hospital pad where the helo was stranded. During the swashplate change after disassembly of the main gear box we noticed that the bolt holes had corrosion build up in them and the ring gear had also been corroding due to bad sealant on the bolt heads; so we ended up removing the entire assembly and changed out the epicyclic and housing at the same time. During the reassembly of the housing and epicyclic; (we had been working for 14 hours that day) we decided to call it and to get some rest. I left to go to my hotel and came back in the morning to find that the epicyclic had already been installed into the housing; however; during my rii of the installation I noticed that the gearbox and epicyclic had been coated with turco instead of mineral oil which is what is called out for. I notified the lead and he said they had installed it after I left. So they came up to the pad to confirm and ended up flushing the system out before we installed the rest of the mast and components. The lead mechanic was instructing and helping to assemble the mast and swashplate assembly (the maintenance manual (MM) reference was printed out and we were going step by step). We had to take breaks often due to how hot it would get on top of the hospital but the job got finished.[several months later] the helicopter was trucked in for a tail rotor strike. During a brief incoming inspection and cleaning another mechanic noticed that the dust cover and or boot that covers the top of the swashplate was missing. During our maintenance ops; there were many people constantly calling to figure out when we would be done which caused many distractions; so less or no phone calls during maintenance ops on an aircraft on ground (aog) aircraft would be immensely helpful. If the aircraft is stuck on the helipad or in an area where it cannot be moved to a hangar; putting up a temp shelter (roof tent) or something like that would help immensely with less fatigue and possible heat stroke; which in turn leads to more mistakes and less work time due to the time spent trying to cool down and regulate body temp and sunburn. No pilot interaction during these maintenance ops would also help a lot; it makes our jobs as mechanics a lot harder when we not only have supervisors and their bosses phoning us all the time to then have the pilot ask how much longer.

Google
 

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: Several Maintenance Technicians reported difficult working conditions that resulted in maintenance errors including the possible installation of the incorrect part number.

Narrative: I work in a 145 Repair station as a hangar mechanic; and I was asked to go to assist in a swashplate change on an AS350B3 that was stuck on the hospital landing pad due to a swashplate shim protruding from the center of the swashplate. The repair took 11 days. We had been working very long hours (10-14hrs daily) in very hot weather all outside on top of the Hospital pad where the helo was stranded. During the swashplate change after disassembly of the main gear box we noticed that the bolt holes had corrosion build up in them and the ring gear had also been corroding due to bad sealant on the bolt heads; so we ended up removing the entire assembly and changed out the epicyclic and housing at the same time. During the reassembly of the housing and epicyclic; (we had been working for 14 hours that day) we decided to call it and to get some rest. I left to go to my hotel and came back in the morning to find that the epicyclic had already been installed into the housing; however; during my RII of the installation I noticed that the gearbox and epicyclic had been coated with Turco instead of mineral oil which is what is called out for. I notified the lead and he said they had installed it after I left. So they came up to the pad to confirm and ended up flushing the system out before we installed the rest of the mast and components. The lead mechanic was instructing and helping to assemble the mast and swashplate assembly (the Maintenance Manual (MM) reference was printed out and we were going step by step). We had to take breaks often due to how hot it would get on top of the hospital but the job got finished.[Several months later] the helicopter was trucked in for a tail rotor strike. During a brief incoming inspection and cleaning another mechanic noticed that the dust cover and or boot that covers the top of the swashplate was missing. During our maintenance ops; there were many people constantly calling to figure out when we would be done which caused many distractions; so less or no phone calls during maintenance ops on an Aircraft on Ground (AOG) aircraft would be immensely helpful. If the aircraft is stuck on the helipad or in an area where it cannot be moved to a hangar; putting up a temp shelter (roof tent) or something like that would help immensely with less fatigue and possible heat stroke; which in turn leads to more mistakes and less work time due to the time spent trying to cool down and regulate body temp and sunburn. No pilot interaction during these maintenance ops would also help a lot; it makes our jobs as mechanics a lot harder when we not only have supervisors and their bosses phoning us all the time to then have the pilot ask how much longer.

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.