USS Bataan AIMD Passes Inspection with Flying Colors

Photo By Petty Officer 3rd Class Alisha Gleason | NORFOLK, Va. (March 8, 2023) Sailors in the Aircraft Intermediate Maintenance Department (AIMD) onboard the Wasp-class amphibious assault ship USS Bataan (LHD 5) successfully pass an Aviation Maintenance Inspection (AMI), March 6 through March 8. This inspection was crucial for the Bataan to be deployable. (U.S. Navy Photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Alisha Gleason)  

UNITED STATES

04.01.2023

Story by Petty Officer 3rd Class Alisha Gleason 

Amphibious Squadron (PHIBRON) 8

AIMD is responsible for providing maintenance and repair services to aircraft onboard, including inspections, repairs, and replacement of parts and components.
AIMD successfully passed the rigorous inspection, certifying the department for deployment with an inspection score of 88%.
“AMI is essentially getting us ready for deployment and letting the team know that our department is ready for this upcoming journey,” said Aviation Support Equipment Technician 1st Class Chad Crist, leading petty officer of Intermediate Maintenance (IM) 04.
During the inspection, AIMD divisions were inspected on each of their programs from foreign object and debris (FOD) to tool issue.
“The tools program is always tough. Every shop that we have in AIMD has a tool box assigned to them, and there are about 5,000 tools AIMD has assigned to their work centers,” said
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Senior Chief Aviation Technician Richard Robillard, the quality assurance officer (QAO). “For aviation we have very stringent tool requirements that we practice. Tools have to be signed out and signed back in for each specific job, that way if a tool ever goes missing we know where to start.”
Crist said preparation for the inspection began last year. First, AIMD was assigned a team from the Maintenance Program Assessment (MPA) and performed a pre-inspection that took place in October 2022. Once the pre-inspection was over, AIMD received a list of discrepancies from each program and was instructed to ensure all discrepancies were fixed by the time of the AMI.
When the time came for the inspection, AIMD was assigned an AMI team and each inspector had three to four specific programs they were responsible for evaluating.
The AMI team began the inspection by meeting with the ship’s program manager to go through the paperwork, qualifications, and routines of each program.
“It is my first time being a QAO,” said Robillard. “As a QAO I am responsible for 36 programs that we keep track of and the quality assurance representatives (QAR) help monitor these programs.”
Each QAR is assigned to a program.Robillard and his team have focused on how to improve each program in order to maintain the standards.
One of the ways the teams improve and maintain standards is performing computerized self-evaluation inspections.
“When we do our own inspections we’re generally harder on ourselves to prepare for AMI,” said Robillard. “We try to focus on the programs that may be more difficult when the inspectors come. It was stressful for some people more than others because they had multiple
responsibilities. They had to be QAR for the work center but they also had to help other work centers if it was needed.”
“It is definitely stressful, but it brought us closer together in the end,” said Crist. “It is an important inspection and also the biggest. Teamwork was a requirement for this inspection.”
Now that AMI is over, the department is focusing on maintaining their programs up to the safety and standards of the inspectors. The results and experiences from this inspection will help AIMD train its Sailors.
“I just want to say thank you to the AIMD leadership, managers, junior Sailors, and all of the work centers who put in extra time to ensure the success of the inspection,” said Robillard.

• Date Taken: 04.01.2023
• Date Posted: 06.15.2023 10:30
• Story ID: 447246
• Location: US