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Aircraft maintenance technician — tasks, one by one
The unit of analysis is the task, not the job title. Each one below carries its direction, whether the judgement rests on evidence or on platform inference, the reasoning, and what it does not establish.
Every task on this page#
Scheduled inspections and checks
Being augmented✓ Evidence-backedCarrying out scheduled checks and conditional inspections of the airframe and systems, and deciding whether damage is within limits.
Drones now take the pictures, and people still decide. Delta has added drone inspections after lightning strikes to the maintenance manual for its entire mainline fleet, with trained technicians and inspectors evaluating the photos to determine airworthiness; it says this helps them decide on aircraft condition up to 82% faster. In Singapore, the aviation authority first authorised drones for general visual inspection in 2020, with images fed to algorithms that assist the inspectors.
Both are the companies' own announcements; the 82% figure is Delta's, and neither reports effects on technician staffing.
Borescope and non-destructive inspection
Being augmented≈ Platform inferenceInspecting engines internally with borescopes and checking structures with non-destructive testing methods.
AI is reviewing images alongside the technician. An engine maker says its AI blade inspection tool cut inspection times for one engine type from 3 to 1.5 hours, with technicians taking the images and the AI guiding which ones to review.
The figure comes from the tool's maker, which also sells engine maintenance; it is not an independent measurement.
Troubleshooting and repair
Still human-led≈ Platform inferenceIsolating faults, replacing and repairing components, and doing the physical work on the aircraft to the maintenance manual.
The work is hands-on, on the aircraft, in awkward places and under time pressure, and diagnostic software supports rather than performs it. US projections expect employment of aircraft and avionics mechanics and technicians to grow 6 percent from 2025 to 2035, faster than average, with about 13,100 openings a year.
A projection counts jobs, not how much diagnosis software now does; no primary source here measures repair work.
Signing off and return to service
Still human-led✓ Evidence-backedApproving the work and the aircraft for return to service, and signing the maintenance record that says so.
The law puts this on a certificated person. US rules say no one other than the regulator may approve an aircraft for return to service after maintenance except the certificated persons they name, that the signature on the maintenance record constitutes that approval, and that at a repair station only an appropriately certificated mechanic or repairman may sign off final inspections and maintenance releases.
US rules; other regulators have their own licensing, and the rules do not measure how records are produced.
Records and maintenance planning
Being augmented✓ Evidence-backedKeeping maintenance records, tracking deferred defects and parts, and planning work around the aircraft's schedule.
This is software-supported clerical and planning work; the entries that carry legal weight are made and signed by certificated people, as the US rules recorded on this page require.
An inference; no primary source recorded here measures how maintenance records are kept or how planning work is done.