Commercial Fixed Wing
Maintenance Airframe; Maintenance Powerplant
Communication Breakdown; Workload; Time Pressure; Situational Awareness
Aircraft Equipment Problem Critical; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Maintenance; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Ground Event / Encounter Ground Equipment Issue; Ground Event / Encounter Vehicle
Aircraft Aircraft Damaged; General Maintenance Action
Equipment / Tooling; Human Factors; Procedure
On Date there was an unfortunate damage to the Right Horizontal Stabilizer of Aircraft X. This damage drove Safety Bulletin on Date 1; which suggested a breakdown in communication as the root cause of the damage. However; most technicians (and supervisors) believe the real root cause of this damage was caused by the inability to use the correct equipment to accomplish the task at hand due to [the] Stores Department using both sides of this bay as staging and storage for their various equipment and items (tires; crates of all types and sizes; stacked at heights of over 10 feet in some instances). The work to be accomplished was on the right hand wing tip but because of all the equipment on the ground a small 35 feet JLG or widebody lift could not be used; instead a much larger JLG was necessary; positioned much further away; resulting in contact/damage to the right horizontal stabilizer. If this was a one off; the technicians probably would not have as much heartburn but this issue of stores using Bay 3; one of our prime widebody aircraft bays; as a storage has been going on for years and has resulted in other aircraft damages in the past.  This has been a well-documented and hot topic of discussion in ZZZ meetings; crew briefings; safety team raising it with messages; every level of management has been made aware of this over the years.  Sadly; the situation is getting worse instead of better.At our latest ZZZ meeting Date 1; a supervisor questioned the findings of the investigation stating that in his experience working the service center; he felt the stores equipment was more of a causation factor than the loss of communication. The reply from another member of management 'I am not aware of this being an issue'. Another participant suggested there was a lot of documentation but was told 'we can look into it and maybe build a case to get the stores equipment moved'. Since the damage; this stores equipment problem has been highlighted at the daily crew briefings and what is glaring to most techs since this damage is the fact that not only has nothing been done to mitigate the issue; it has actually gotten worse since the latest damage. This aircraft has been out of service now for almost 3 weeks; (if we are to believe the finance people when they tell us that a wide body generates X money on average a day); that's a costly stores area; just looking at it from that perspective!The unfortunate reality is in the event of a damage the technician is grilled in the investigation; sent for drug and alcohol testing; always made to feel at fault; always told it was self-induced pressure; and of course have their records pulled showing they signed off a specific training course; maintenance & engineering bulletin; awareness class etc. I have examples of this from many investigation reports.  I'm filing this report because the front-line mechanics don't want to for fear of repercussions if they did.  Sure; there are many human factors that come into play when incidents like this happen but when you look at it; this is not complacency on the part of the mechanics. There are real pressures to get these aircraft in and worked in BAY 3 and we crutch the system on a daily basis because of these pressures.  My question; how is Company living up to their values of safety always being #1 when this issue has been ignored for years despite the attention and spotlight?What is staggering to most; weeks after the latest very costly damage the situation is actually worse. The only answer could be; if you investigate and find the root cause that suits; then of course it will be impossible to mitigate and address the real root cause! I won't gain any friends for pointing this out but this issue needs to be addressed. It is our responsibility; from safety; to Management; coworkers etc.; to do the right thing; provide a safe work environment; which helps keep us all safe from injury and our assets from being damaged. We owe it to each other and ourcustomers. At this juncture this needs to be a priority from senior leadership because constant suggestions and concern from the floor have hit a brick wall and frankly we on the front line don't have the authority to fix the problem.
Reporter states that due to congestion on the hangar floor; a larger man lift was used to conduct maintenance and resulted in damage to the aircraft.