Pre-purchase inspection.
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Define "pre-purchase inspector" and type aircraft to be checked.
At the GA individual mx level usually no for that type of check. A pre-buy/purchase "inspection" is not a FAA required inspection so most insurance policies won't mention it or cover it. Plus what defines a pre-buy check? There are some shops that may have that type of coverage but doubtful you could find an attorney to pursue it. At the higher end Biz level aircraft it is more defined and there can be specific language in pre-buy agreements but you're looking large amounts of money changing hands at that level. Do you have a specific example your asking about?
Will this be the mechanic that you will use to maintain this aircraft if you buy it?
FWIW: there should be zero guessing involved when having a pre-buy done on an aircraft you intend to buy. It's to your advantage to know everything that will be done during this pre-buy and if necessary get a 2nd or 3rd opinion if there are questions before the pre-buy even starts.
schmookeeg
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Is there a protocol more in-depth than the Annual Inspection checklist provided by the manufacturer? I'm used to the prebuy being a subset of that, not a superset. In fact, most prebuys I've been involved with are solving a different equation -- "will this aircraft bankrupt me?" not "will this aircraft kill me?" -- they're inspecting the expensive parts and likely repairs needed in the next few years of ownership, but not every little inexpensive "jesus bolt" that an airframe contains.
We used to "upgrade" a prebuy to an annual for a reduced cost, trying to drive home the idea that they're different inspections. Buyers who do "annual in lieu of prebuy" are doing things properly IMO, even though I don't often shop that way.
Do IAs get sued for missing items at annual? Successfully?
We used to "upgrade" a prebuy to an annual for a reduced cost, trying to drive home the idea that they're different inspections. Buyers who do "annual in lieu of prebuy" are doing things properly IMO, even though I don't often shop that way.
Do IAs get sued for missing items at annual? Successfully?
Only provided the seller agrees to it and a number of sellers will not for various reasons.
Yes. And it depends on what was missed or work performed... and how good the attorney is.
Which is exactly what a prebuy should be. Unfortunately, I don't think many prospective buyers understand this until they've played the buying game a few times.
Buyers who do "annual in lieu of prebuy" are doing things properly IMO, even though I don't often shop that way.
I disagree, for the reasons you stated above. An airplane can easily be annualed and found to be airworthy but it will still eat you out of house and home because all the parts are at the end of their realistic useful life. Or, even worse, an airplane could have a fresh annual but an expensive time limited component needs replacement in 50 hours that would render the aircraft to only be worth salvage price. To me the only benefit of getting the plane annualed at the same time that the pre-purchase inspection is completed is that you don't have to worry about getting it inspected for another 12 months.
schmookeeg
En-Route
Any juicy cases I can read up on where the IA got burned for missing something in an inspection? I'm pretty ignorant on this side of the law.
Wouldn't "will this aircraft kill me" be the more important question to ask? I would much rather be bankrupt than dead.Is there a protocol more in-depth than the Annual Inspection checklist provided by the manufacturer? I'm used to the prebuy being a subset of that, not a superset. In fact, most prebuys I've been involved with are solving a different equation -- "will this aircraft bankrupt me?" not "will this aircraft kill me?" -- they're inspecting the expensive parts and likely repairs needed in the next few years of ownership, but not every little inexpensive "jesus bolt" that an airframe contains.
We used to "upgrade" a prebuy to an annual for a reduced cost, trying to drive home the idea that they're different inspections. Buyers who do "annual in lieu of prebuy" are doing things properly IMO, even though I don't often shop that way.
Do IAs get sued for missing items at annual? Successfully?
Kristin
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If you are worried about the kill thing then have it annualed after the pre-purchase, though a good pre-purchase will give you a good idea of the overall condition of the aircraft. What an annual will get you is a certification, maybe accurate and maybe not, that the aircraft meets the minimum standards of airworthiness. It will not tell you that the autopilot doesn't work and half the instruments and most of the avionics are not working properly. It will not tell you whether the aircraft has damage history and it doesn't fly straight. All the things that an annual doesn't tell you could end up costing you so much that you wished you had died.
Ravioli
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Short answer: No liability
Let's get @Tom-D and @Checkout_my_Six and @Doc Holliday to battle it out. That will be fun.
Reason for my short answer: What is the logbook entry for a pre-buy? You know the thing the A&P and or IA puts in the log with a certificate number.
Absent that, it's the same as taking a Hudson to the Jiffy Lube for a once over.
[Edit: We'll have to wait a bit for Tom-D... he's on a forum holiday]
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Checkout_my_Six
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It's called an annual inspection.....that's what I'd ask for.
True on both accounts. But as an FYI, unless the pre-buy or annual is performed by the APIA you will use after the purchase any of those checks will be subjective to the person doing them. One persons view on what is airworthy can be different then what your APIA may think.
Kristin
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Short response: Could easily be civil liability, if not FAA liability. Two different concepts with two different sets of rules. The one that insurance covers is civil liability. Civil liability is predicated on the law of negligence. They fact that one did not sign something has no effect on the duty imposed by the law of negligence.
If one's priority is being able to recover damages from an inspector then go to the biggest shop you can find that is willing to do a pre-buy. If one's priority is getting the best possible handle on the condition of the aircraft then it might be more valuable to get a pre-buy from someone who really knows that make and model, rather than has a boatload of insurance.
weirdjim
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That's why I've never done a pre-buy in 50 years and not likely to do one in another 50. How in the hell do you expect me to find a hairline crack in a crankshaft without pulling the engine and tearing it apart? Or corrosion so far up in the vertical stab that it would take pulling the skin off the stab to find it?
When the OP asks for "Juicy stories" about missed prebuy items, I smell a rat trying to hold a mechanic responsible for the repairs to the lifetime of the aircraft.
Not me, buddy.
Jim
When the OP asks for "Juicy stories" about missed prebuy items, I smell a rat trying to hold a mechanic responsible for the repairs to the lifetime of the aircraft.
Not me, buddy.
Jim
Timbeck2
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It wasn't the OP that asked for a juicy story.
Only if the person improperly performs mx in the course of the pre-buy. Otherwise the FAA has no interest.
As to civil liability, anything is possible provided the damages were high enough to entice an attorney to take the case. However, if any defect is noted after a pre-buy it would more than likely fall against the previous regulatory inspection results like a 100hr or annual and not the pre-buy as it has zero regulatory basis. My insurance policy was somewhat specific on the type of mx I performed and short of a contractual agreement between parties, a pre-buy check was one of those gray areas that could be difficult to recover damages.
If you are looking at a Bonanza, get a Bonanza maintenance expert to look at the logbooks and then the aircraft. If looking at an Airbus, don't use a Boeing guy. If looking at a Chevy, use a Chevy expert, not a Ford guy. Demand a RTS entry to cover the maintenance done, to keep the aircraft legal. Be prepared to hear the "truth" about the cream puff of your dreams.
Ben2k9
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Do yourself a giant favor and hire Savvy Aviation to manage your pre-buy on the Cirrus. Just went through this myself earlier this year and you don’t want to be on your own on this one.
Also, don’t do an annual until you actually own the plane. Doing an annual instead of a pre-buy is not smart.
The proper way to do it is plan to roll the pre-buy work into the annual after completion of the transaction. A pre-buy is about 1/3rd the work of an annual on a Cirrus.
What does an annual cost on a Cirrus SR22?
pigpenracing
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My mechanic won't do a prebuy anymore because people suck!
He has done some prebuys and people come complain that after 50 hours of flying they have issues and he should be liable!
That is just stupid!
You can have a good engine and 20 hours later it could take a dump... Just the way it goes...
He has done some prebuys and people come complain that after 50 hours of flying they have issues and he should be liable!
That is just stupid!
You can have a good engine and 20 hours later it could take a dump... Just the way it goes...
Ben2k9
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steingar
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Anyone can sue anyone else for anything. Absent a logbook sign off I don't know how that would work though. All an A&P has to do is give a very general bill. Dude can say he didn't pretty anything.
Biggest thing is lawyers usually go for deep pockets, and most mechanics don't have those.
Biggest thing is lawyers usually go for deep pockets, and most mechanics don't have those.
Kristin
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True, but pulling the top plugs to do a compression test and borescope the cylinders would be considered maintenance. But I agree that FAA involvement in a pre-purchase dispute would be pretty rare.
Under civil tort law, the fact that the pre-purchase inspection does not have a regulatory basis is pretty much irrelevant. All the plaintiff has to prove is that the mechanic breached their duty to perform the inspection. The scope of duty is where there is an opportunity for the mechanic to cover him/herself. I make sure, usually through a series of emails, that I have established what the scope of the inspection is to be. That way I can limit my liability to only what I actually look at.
If something does go wrong that is within the scope, then the plaintiff has to prove that the mechanic breached his/her duty by not acting as a reasonably prudent aircraft mechanic would. He is an example of how something like this might play out in a civil lawsuit. Lets say Joe wants to buy a Comanche and asks his local mechanic to do a pre-purchase inspection and the mechanic agrees, even though he has only worked on a couple of Comanches in his 25 years of working on planes. To inspect the landing gear, he puts the plane on jacks and runs the gear up and down a few times and pronounces the landing gear satisfactory. After looking over a number of other things, the mechanic gives Joe the all clear and Joe buys the plane. On the first flight, Joe is landing in a stiff crosswind and the landing gear collapses. Joe did not buy hull insurance so he sues the mechanic. Joe's attorney brings on an expert witness who testifies that he/she has done a couple of dozen pre-purchase inspections on Comanches and done annual inspections on a couple of dozen more. He/she then explains how the landing gear works, the importance of checking for wear in the landing gear system, quotes from the FAA's AD, Piper's Service Bulletin on the gear, and the service manual. The expert witness then opines that had Joe's mechanic properly checked for wear in the landing gear system the gear would not have collapsed and that anyone who held themselves out as being capable of knowing how to do a pre-buy on a Comanche would have known to check for wear. If the jury believes the expert witness, they are likely to decide that Joe's mechanic needs to pay for the damages to the plane.
danhagan
En-Route
You can do compression checks, borescope and corrosion evaluation, yet still have things occur that there is no way to check out prior. You're looking for easy major "gotcha's" on the pre-buy ... I had to rebuild a mag after pre-purchase annual because the previous mechanic didn't perform the mag SB correctly ... have had other hidden issues as well ... can't catch them all, just try to REDUCE probability.
Agree totally. That was the intent of my comment--anything is possible. But if Joe's attorney/expert can show the defect was caused by an error during the aircraft's last objective regulatory inspection--vs a subjective informal pre-buy check--the "preponderance of evidence" may just shift that jury toward the other guy and away from Joe.
The "damages recovery" part was more pointed toward what an insurance policy may pay off on. One of my previous mx policies exemptions was for any engine repair work and the use of non-standard procedures, i.e., not using established industry/FAA procedures. A pre-buy can be one of those non-standard procedures. So if the insurance policy denies the pre-buy claim and does not defend and the mechanic is not of means then who will pay the damages? Would an attorney even take the case if there was no probable recovery of damages? It was also the reason my "pre-buys" were either a visual/conformity check with no mx, or they followed an industry standard like a 100 hour inspection form which would be signed off as such (and not a "pre-buy") in the aircraft record.
Kristin
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I doubt that an insurance policy covering a mechanic/FBO could successfully deny coverage for a pre-purchase inspection unless it was very explicitly spelled out in the insurance policy. All ambiguities are construed against the insurer who wrote the policy.
That being said, liability is fact of life that a mechanic must be very aware of these days. One of the unintended consequences of GARA was to shift more liability claims towards the maintenance shops. The folks getting squeezed the most is the smaller shops. The bigger shops can sometimes avoid some of the issues by refusing to work on aircraft older than 18 years, thus making sure that the deep-pockets manufacturer will be a more juicy target. Mechanics working out of their pick up generally have no insurance and not enough assets to be worth a plaintiff's attorney going after.
That being said, liability is fact of life that a mechanic must be very aware of these days. One of the unintended consequences of GARA was to shift more liability claims towards the maintenance shops. The folks getting squeezed the most is the smaller shops. The bigger shops can sometimes avoid some of the issues by refusing to work on aircraft older than 18 years, thus making sure that the deep-pockets manufacturer will be a more juicy target. Mechanics working out of their pick up generally have no insurance and not enough assets to be worth a plaintiff's attorney going after.
My last true freelance mechanic policy back in the 90s had verbiage to that effect and was similar to what I mentioned above. Had a couple attorneys look it over and they rolled their eyes. But the policies after that were changed to hangar-keepers type policy and didn't have any similar exemptions other than not doing engine repair work. Unfortunately, being a freelancer I could never claim on 2/3s of that hangar-keep policy that I paid for.
Agree on GARA. But with the uptick in insurance costs after GARA I know of some shops that carry no coverage. I consulted on an incident where a busy one man turbine shop carried zero Products /Completed Operations Liability insurance. I know the guy and ask why. He said cheaper to retain counsel out right and ensure he does his work correctly. Sure enough once the direction of the incident turned away from the turbine work his attorney no longer showed up at the meetings. Never thought I would carry more insurance than a turbine shop.
Morgan3820
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Glad that I am not your mechanic or plane partner or....
When you do buy a plane and go take it to a mechanic make sure you tell him that you’re gonna hold him legally liable for anything he does wrong.
Rgbeard
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C'mon. You know this guy has to be a real gem!
I'm glad you're not my mechanic too.
If you get your prebuy done by some 3rd rate mechanic working out of his home garage then that's your problem. My prebuy inspection is being done by a Certified Cirrus Service Center. I already asked them if they are insured regarding the things I mentioned and they said yes. So what's the problem again?
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Yes considering you buy your planes with a handshake and a personal check. I must be some kind of anomaly.
Can't believe there are posters here that will get triggered just because I dare to ask if mechanics are insured.
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Morgan3820
Ejection Handle Pulled
That was only part of your question. You ended with:
"If there is something wrong with the plane and the mechanic who's doing the inspection overlooked it can he/she be held liable for it"
I stand by my statement.
Furthermore, You have no idea how I buy my planes. And yes, I agree, you must be some kind of..
Have a nice day.
When a mechanic shop is insured then yes he/she can be held liable for it. That's what being insured means. Furthermore, that reply was not addressed to you nor do I care about how you buy your planes. You're obviously not a very good mechanic if you're going to get this triggered by a simple question.
Now go away.
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Rgbeard
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I vote newbie goes away.
Fiveslide
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If I'm ever able to afford a Cirrus, perhaps I will have changed my opinion on mechanic selection. However, right now, I think I'd rather choose a mechanic based upon my own research, references and verifiable experience than the certificate of completion of Cirrus maintenance training. Your Cirrus certified mechanic could hold that designation for a very short time, unless you ask how are you to know. I got you thinking, don't I?
Good thing about the CAPS, if you have to pull the chute, you'll likely live to sue someone. What doesn't kill you makes you money.
If you owned a boat, you sound just like the type of customer I would... oh, I'll just stop there.
So how does a "newbie" learn a better way to do things?
Rgbeard
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Witty reply redacted to avoid suspension
Being insured means you can be sued? Who knew? I’m going to drop all my insurance so nobody can ever sue me.
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