Aircraft Maintenance: Why It Matters and What to Know

Aircraft maintenance is crucial for aviation safety, but what exactly goes on behind the scenes? Learn about essential maintenance checks, best practices, and why proper documentation is just as important as a well-maintained engine.

What is Aircraft Maintenance?

Aircraft maintenance is a continuous and essential process that operates behind the scenes. From check-in to takeoff, a coordinated system ensures a seamless and safe journey. However, ensuring every flight is safe and secure takes an incredible amount of work that you probably never notice. That’s a sign that aircraft mechanics are doing their jobs with extreme care.

Importance

No flight would be possible without proper aircraft and avionics maintenance. These checks happen before, during, and after every flightwhether its an air freight, private jet, or commercial airliner. Before takeoff, mechanics inspect everything from the engines to the landing gear. During the flight, pilots continuously monitor the planes performance. Once the flight is over, maintenance teams check again for leaks, damage, or any necessary repairs.

While airplane mechanics need to understand aerodynamics and be skilled with a wrench, they also need to know asset management. Documentation and record-keeping are essential in aircraft maintenance; every inspection and replaced part must be precisely tracked to prevent future confusion or, more importantly, accidents.

Types of Aircraft Maintenance Checks

When you’re carrying hundreds of passengers daily, maintenance management must be a top priority. The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) requires every airline to establish a Continuous Airworthiness Maintenance Program (CAMP), a structured set of guidelines or inspections that will keep an aircraft airworthy throughout its operational life.

Some commonly done airline maintenance checks are the following:

  • Line Maintenance – Performed every 2460 flight hours before takeoff. Mechanics inspect the wheels, landing gear, and engines to ensure everything is airworthy.
  • A Checks – Conducted every 400600 flight hours, requiring at least 10 hours of maintenance. This is a full inspection from nose to tail.
  • B Checks – Done alongside A Checks every 68 months. These involve deeper inspections and minor maintenance tasks.
  • C Checks – A heavy maintenance check requiring over 6,000 labor hours. The aircraft can be out of order for up to two weeks for detailed inspections, repairs, and sometimes a fresh coat of paint when needed.
  • D Checks – The most extensive inspection, occurring every 610 years. The aircraft is partially disassembled to check for damage and corrosion, taking 30,00050,000 labor hours over the span of four to six weeks.
  • Unscheduled Maintenance – Performed when unexpected issues arise. These maintenance repairs ensure the aircraft remains safe and airworthy before its next flight.

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What are the Best Practices for Proper Aircraft Maintenance Engineering?

Here is a simple aircraft maintenance checklist of best practices to help ensure your team doesnt miss out on important steps:

As technology continues to evolve, many of these tasks can now be done digitally. SafetyCulture is a platform that helps streamline record-keeping and auditing, ensuring that documentation and checklists are well-organized. Additionally, it supports the training of future aircraft mechanics by providing structured resources.

Raf Villamor
Article by

Raf Villamor

SafetyCulture Content Specialist
Rafael Villamor—just call him Raf—is an SEO Content Specialist at SafetyCulture with a knack for crafting engaging and strategic content. With a background in Multimedia Arts, he’s a true jack-of-all-trades—blending skills in advertising, copywriting, video editing, web design, and a smidge of graphic design. His experience in content writing spans different industries, ensuring that every piece he creates is not just informative but also fun, fresh, and optimized for success.