Date: 202003
Location: ZZZ.Airport, US
Aircraft: Commercial Fixed Wing
Flight phase: Parked
Reporter organization: Air Carrier
Reporter function: Technician
Reporter qualification: Maintenance Airframe; Maintenance Powerplant
Human factors: Communication Breakdown
Anomaly: Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Flight Deck / Cabin / Aircraft Event Illness / Injury
Detector: Person Maintenance
When detected: Routine Inspection
Result: General Work Refused
Contributing factors: Human Factors; Environment - Non Weather Related; Company Policy; Procedure
Primary problem: Company Policy

Narrative: I came in for my shift and heard from a previous shift Mechanic that [an] aircraft had flown in with a passenger who had tested positive for COVID-19. The Mechanic informed me that the line Supervisor for that shift had received a phone call from company Maintenance Control swapping the aircraft out for the next flight. The line Mechanic had told me that his Supervisor had explicitly used the terms 'passenger had tested positive for Coronavirus.' The line side mechanics had already done their maintenance inside and outside of the aircraft and taxied it back to the hangar before the Supervisor had received the call from Maintenance Control; (to my understanding).Not wanting to rely on hearsay from a fellow Mechanic I inquired to the another Supervisor what was going on; to which he replied that everything was 'just rumors' and that they didn't know anything. I wasn't satisfied with that answer; so I talked to yet another Supervisor and requested that he make the phone calls necessary to find out the details. After making some calls; a meeting was held in which we were told nothing was for certain; only that 'a passenger may have been sick.' The company ordered that aircraft to sit for three days before having a deep clean then released.My concern is that the company management would intentionally hide specific threats to the health of their workers on the line. We have still not been given any explanation as to how Maintenance Control would come to know a passenger was 'sick;' there has still been no line of communication from the company as to whether a passenger had indeed 'tested positive' or was generally sick (as we'd been told later). The mechanics on the line still don't know if those words were used by management; the individual Supervisor who received the call from management may have been acting out of an abundance of caution. My follow-up inquiries were met with the answer that 'we just don't know.'My concern; indeed shared by many; is not the general threat of infection which may come undetected from any unknown source; but rather a specific threat to our health and our loved ones; that the company management would intentionally hide from us. Why did management swap our perfectly good aircraft? How did they come to know anything regarding the possible infection at all? Why wasn't Maintenance informed right way? When many of us had to hear rumors from fellow mechanics and asked for answers; why were the facts or sources suddenly unknown?




Synopsis: Maintenance Technician reported confusion and conflicting information regarding an aircraft at their station that was possibly contaminated by Coronavirus.