Maintenance Airframe; Maintenance Powerplant
Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Maintenance; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
General Maintenance Action
Environment - Non Weather Related; Equipment / Tooling; Procedure
I want to take the opportunity to express my concerns regarding pitot tubes covers and inspection requirements and that is...here at ZZZ we have airplanes that sit on ground for more than XX hours and therefore need pitot inspections before departure as the GPM XX.XX.X states and are accomplished...our concerns rely on the fact that these same airplanes are not scheduled to depart until most of times well beyond a substantial period of time on ground and as mechanics we feel that signing the pitot inspections well before hours (i.e.; 4 hours; 6 hours; 8 hours; etc.) before departure is a safety concern because these same aircrafts are sitting on remote pads of the airport without pitot covers since ZZZ has no covers available or NOT enough!! We cannot have; for safety reasons; mechanics signing pitot inspections when airplanes are not scheduled to depart for another 5 or 6 hours until departure time...what guarantees that bugs or other forms of FOD is not gonna get inside those tubes after having signed for the inspections in the AML Logbook??  We have brought this issue with ZZZ management but they tend to believe that because the GPM XX.XX.X states 'Before Departure;' this 2 word sentence to them means: 'ANY time the Aircraft is linked in [the system]'...which we STRONGLY DISAGREE...since again departure times are well beyond the 6-8 hours before departure.  We as maintenance Mechanics would be in jeopardy of putting our licenses on the line if something was to happen with pitot systems after signing for the inspection and still have aircrafts sitting on ground for another 6-8 hours uncovered.  We strongly recommend the GPM XX.XX.X be revised with specifics regarding Pitot Inspections and sign offs.  I want to thank the many individuals in your department for keeping us informed with updated info on issues that pertain to aircraft maintenance.  We hope that this particular issue gets resolved for the sake of everyone in maintenance and our flying public.These events are recurrent.GPM needs to be specific about their definition of 'Prior to departure.'  We strongly suggest the inspection be performed with aircraft on gate prior to departure (2 hours) and notate it in AML log.
Mechanic reported that after pitot inspections are accomplished prior to departure; aircraft frequently sit on the ground for hours with no pitot tube covers to protect against contaminants.