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Final Approach
Tuesday I flew my plane to a nearby avionics shop for its IFR certs. As always, before departing from home base I did a thorough pre-flight, and among other more important actions, locked the cargo door in the rear and made sure there was nothing sticking out of it (a piece of the interior carpeting sometimes sticks out). The inspection took about 5 hours; the tech crew reported a tough leak in the altimeter's baro scale. When it was done, I squared up with the shop and walked out to the plane. There was a section of my Battery Minder cable sticking out the cargo door and the lock had been turned to the open position, but it was impossible to open the door. The shop owner even fiddled with it for a minute and then gave up. I had no solid evidence to accuse anyone and in the 35ºC heat, couldn't even swear that I had locked the door.
On the flight back, I went over my pre-flight actions and recalled clearly that I had locked the door. After landing at home base, I found that the door could now be opened, and right inside were shards of cardboard from the case of oil that I keep up against the rear panel. No question that someone had either jimmied the lock or used a "universal" airplane key and still had to force the lock, causing it to slip slightly out of alignment. The two technicians working on my plane were trainees - the owner explained that an aerospace startup had "sucked away" all of his avionics staff and he now had to build his staff up again from scratch.
Am I correct that normally, a mechanic or technician should ask the owner of the plane for a key, or to leave the cargo area open, rather than just jimmying or otherwise forcing the lock open? At Rutland, where I take my plane for annual, that is certainly SOP. In the shop's defense, I forgot to ask them if they needed the cargo area open when I landed, as they were in a hurry to get my plane inside the hangar. And also, being trainees, the technicians might not have been familiar with normal shop etiquette.
On the flight back, I went over my pre-flight actions and recalled clearly that I had locked the door. After landing at home base, I found that the door could now be opened, and right inside were shards of cardboard from the case of oil that I keep up against the rear panel. No question that someone had either jimmied the lock or used a "universal" airplane key and still had to force the lock, causing it to slip slightly out of alignment. The two technicians working on my plane were trainees - the owner explained that an aerospace startup had "sucked away" all of his avionics staff and he now had to build his staff up again from scratch.
Am I correct that normally, a mechanic or technician should ask the owner of the plane for a key, or to leave the cargo area open, rather than just jimmying or otherwise forcing the lock open? At Rutland, where I take my plane for annual, that is certainly SOP. In the shop's defense, I forgot to ask them if they needed the cargo area open when I landed, as they were in a hurry to get my plane inside the hangar. And also, being trainees, the technicians might not have been familiar with normal shop etiquette.
