B737-800
Maintenance Airframe; Maintenance Powerplant
Maintenance Inspector 1; Maintenance Lead Technician 5; Maintenance Technician 24
Communication Breakdown; Situational Awareness; Distraction
Aircraft Equipment Problem Less Severe; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Ground Event / Encounter Object
Aircraft Aircraft Damaged; General Maintenance Action
Human Factors
A B737-800 aircraft was just lowered from jacks after all three landing gears were replaced. Mr. Y and I were assigned to service all three landing gear struts. All gears had a nitrogen pre-charge that had to be removed prior to service with fluid and a final nitrogen charge. I cleared the aircraft of obstacles and connected tooling to deflate the left Main Landing Gear (MLG). I told Mr. Y and other technicians that the aircraft would be lowered. An Inspector was on a ladder in the left main landing gear wheel well when I was connecting the tooling; but was not there when I started bleeding the left main landing gear. The Shift Manager walked up and started talking to us at this time. A crack was heard and we saw the ladder the Inspector left in the wheel well under the keel beam area. We raised the left main landing gear to remove the ladder and saw that a panel and an intercostal had been damaged.Increase communication with everyone working around the aircraft. Pay more attention to clearing aircraft for Operational (Ops) Checks; etc.; and [do] not be distracted by others. [I] will not assume everyone will remove ladders etc. from around aircraft. Asked Supervisor and Lead Technicians to hand out all work cards and documents related to job assigned at start of shift. Not all related work cards were given to us at beginning of the job assigned.Tools (ladder) were incorrectly used; not moved away from aircraft after completing a task. All applicable work documents were not handed out at the beginning of job assigned. Talking with Shift Manager while job was in progress [was a distraction.] Complacency. Workplace distractions; interruptions. Physical health. High noise levels.
An Aircraft Maintenance Technician (AMT) reports about damage to the keel beam area of a company B737-800 aircraft when a left Main Landing Gear (MLG) was deflated. Contributing factors were heat; noise; lack of communications; distraction when Shift Manager started talking with the crew and maintenance work being accomplished during the MLG deflation.