2.1 Why Documentation is important

1. A 2004 UK Flight Safety Committee determined that the top three causes of maintenance mishaps were:
   
   
   1. Failure to follow published technical documentation
      
      
   2. Using an unauthorized procedure not referenced in the technical documentation
      
      
   3. Supervisory personnel accepting non-use of technical documentation or failure to follow maintenance instructions.
      
      
2. A 2001 FAA study found that documentation is the leading contributing factor to maintenance events. In most cases organizational issues resulted in failure to use documentation that was available.
   
   
3. A 2002 study of procedural issues from NASA Aviation Safety Reporting System incident reports showed that the following factors contributed to documentation-related errors: procedural design flaws, user errors, currency and accessibility of documents, and organizational practices.
   
   
4. Aviation maintenance personnel spend from 25-40% of their time searching for, using and completing maintenance documentation.