Narrative:

Aircraft was in the hangar for maintenance when I walked by the tow bar and noticed that it had standard an bolts installed in the head where shear pins should have been installed. I then tagged out this E-190 tow bar. I then called the gse (ground service equipment) vendor for it to be fixed. They never showed up to fix the bar. I then went to the gate to get a serviceable bar. There I found 2 more tow bars also with an bolts installed. I tagged these out as well and notified my supervisor and manager. Towards the end of the shift I noticed that all the tow bars that I tagged earlier in the night had the tags removed and were not fixed. I received a follow up email from management tonight saying that [the gse vendor] had no supervisor on duty sundays and that another employee from dayshift was going to check the bars. This is a serious safety issue someone is going to get hurt or aircraft damage is going to happen.the gse vendor employees seem to be inadequately trained; understaffed; and do not have the parts to fix the equipment properly. Also; the employees have a very hard time understanding what you are telling them is broken due to language barrier. There needs to be someone in charge on shift at all times at the vendor gse shop. The employees need to be retrained on the equipment they are maintaining and have access to parts. Need to communicate to employees that it is not all right to pull out of service tags without properly fixing the equipment. If the vendor cannot properly maintain our equipment then it should be brought in house to the [company facility] gse department. Safety needs to be made a priority at [our company].

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: Maintenance reported that 'unserviceable' tags were removed from several tow bars and; the tow bars were put back into service without being repaired.

Narrative: Aircraft was in the hangar for maintenance when I walked by the tow bar and noticed that it had standard AN Bolts installed in the head where shear pins should have been installed. I then tagged out this E-190 tow bar. I then called the GSE (Ground Service Equipment) vendor for it to be fixed. They never showed up to fix the bar. I then went to the gate to get a serviceable bar. There I found 2 more tow bars also with AN bolts installed. I tagged these out as well and notified my supervisor and manager. Towards the end of the shift I noticed that all the tow bars that I tagged earlier in the night had the tags removed and were not fixed. I received a follow up email from management tonight saying that [the GSE vendor] had no supervisor on duty Sundays and that another employee from dayshift was going to check the bars. This is a serious safety issue someone is going to get hurt or Aircraft damage is going to happen.The GSE vendor employees seem to be inadequately trained; understaffed; and do not have the parts to fix the equipment properly. Also; the employees have a very hard time understanding what you are telling them is broken due to language barrier. There needs to be someone in charge on shift at all times at the Vendor GSE shop. The employees need to be retrained on the equipment they are maintaining and have access to parts. Need to communicate to employees that it is not all right to pull out of service tags without properly fixing the equipment. If the Vendor cannot properly maintain our equipment then it should be brought in house to the [company facility] GSE department. Safety needs to be made a priority at [our company].

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.