A319
Maintenance Airframe; Maintenance Powerplant
Time Pressure; Situational Awareness; Communication Breakdown
Aircraft Equipment Problem Less Severe; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Maintenance; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
General Flight Cancelled / Delayed; General Maintenance Action
Human Factors; Aircraft; Procedure
My co-worker and I were tasked with adjusting and selling to inspection; a girt bar fitting on the right aft service door of [an A319]. I was standing behind my partner as the safety observer; reading over the [Aircraft Maintenance Manual]. During the same period of time my partner was working on the door checking for the proper tolerance while the emergency slide is armed as the [Aircraft Maintenance Manual] instructs. As I was going over the [Aircraft Maintenance Manual]; I hear an unusual noise and looked up to see the slide has been deployed.
I was working on [an A319] 2R door after reading through a slide render safe checklist; [Aircraft Maintenance Manual] 52-XX-XX and 52-XX-XY turned over to us by day shift. The non-routine generated was for the broken forward girt bar floor fitting which was replaced and did not pass inspection on day shift. The [Aircraft Maintenance Manual] required the door to be armed with the girt bar engaged to check for gaps between the girt bar and floor fitting. I was lifting the handle on an armed door to clear the door and allow for inspection of the girt bar in the floor fitting when the handle went past the break over point. The door swung out of my grasp and the slide deployed.
Two Maintenance Technicians reported an inadvertent escape slide deployment while replacing a girt bar floor fitting.