As a buyer, the key to choosing a facility for your Pre-Purchase Inspection (PPI) is to go to a facility who knows your type of aircraft well, will do a thorough job reviewing the aircraft and knows the typical hot spots where maintenance issues can be found. It does not always have to be a manufacturer owned facility – there are many extremely capable maintenance facilities who are independent of the manufacturers. We do, however, recommend that buyers try to use a maintenance facility that has not been the habitual base throughout the aircraft’s life. During a PPI, you are ensuring the aircraft has been maintained properly throughout its life, and a conflict of interest exists in asking the jet’s usual maintenance facility to make sure they’ve been properly maintaining the aircraft.
As a part of human nature, if you’ve seen something multiple times you become accustomed to it; you can often overlook when something changes. In this same vein, if a facility has seen an aircraft multiple times a year for maintenance, a familiarity can appear and changes can often go unnoticed. Even the best facilities can overlook things by mistake.
Often, fresh eyes can find more defects to repair than the usual facility the aircraft has been to, and you want to know these defects before you take title of the aircraft and have to repair them at your own cost and time.
Sometimes a seller will say no to this request of maintenance facility switch because it is cheaper to keep it at their normal facility and they like that the team know their aircraft. This is a contractual point and can be negotiated, but it is one of our first requests when buying an aircraft for a client. It is completely fine to stay at the home facility; most facilities are highly regulated and experienced and offer stellar service, but if it does stay at the home facility for the inspection, make sure the scope of your PPI is thorough.
Also keep in mind that there is no standard pre-purchase inspection. There is not a task in the aircraft maintenance manual that encompasses a PPI, and each workscope is typically bespoke. Some OEM’s offer a package of tasks and have some levels of workscope that they offer as part of a marketing service, but each facilty’s version will vary. As a result, consult with your team of broker, operator and CAMO to come up with a work package that will adequately survey the aircraft in all of its various areas.
Finally, remember that no PPI is all encompassing. It is not possible to look at all areas of the aircraft, and after closing, defects can and often arise. There is an understandble tendency in transactions to beleive that finishing a PPI means that no defects will be found on the plane for a period of months. This is not fair to the facility nor realistic – any maintenance input has a limit to its scope and defects will arise after the PPI, sometimes even in the same area as was inspected during the Inspection.
Blogs are written from real world experience by Colibri Aircraft’s individuals. If you have any questions or comments about the topic of this blog, please feel free to contact us at enquiries@colibriaircraft.com
