First Post-Maintenance Flight Should Be Treated With Caution and Respect

NTSB accident reports back up the importance of aircraft testing in return to service.

Meg Godlewski

Tuesday, June 10, 2025 at 01:00 PM ET

Verified

Edited By:

Travis Tingle

There are many instances in NTSB accident reports where something bad happened during the first postmaintenance flight. [Credit: FLYING Magazine Archives]

Key Takeaways:

The first flight after significant aircraft maintenance, such as an annual inspection, is inherently high-risk, a fact recognized by seasoned mechanics, regulatory bodies like FAR 91.407(b), and NTSB accident reports.
Pilots conducting these mandatory post-maintenance operational check flights must exercise extreme caution and always heed mechanics' advice, as illustrated by an incident where a pilot ignored pre-flight engine issues and a mechanic's warning, resulting in an engine failure due to a maintenance error.
Critical areas for pilots to meticulously inspect during post-maintenance pre-flights include ensuring flight controls are correctly rigged and free, seats and seat rails are securely locked, and the engine compartment is free of any foreign objects.

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If you ask a seasoned aviation mechanic what flight is the most risk-prone for an aircraft, you may be surprised to hear that it’s the first flight after significant maintenance, such as the annual inspection. I learned this when I worked at a flight school that had the CFIs do the “return to service test flights.”

This follows FAR 91.407 (b), which states “[if] the aircraft has been maintained, rebuilt, or altered in a manner that may have appreciably changed its flight characteristics or substantially affected its operation in flight, it cannot be released for rental until an appropriately rated pilot with at least a private pilot certificate flies the aircraft and makes an operational check of the maintenance performed or alteration made, and logs the flight in the aircraft records.”