{
  "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register",
  "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/avionics-technicians/",
  "methodology": "https://cookedindex.com/methodology",
  "notice": "Verdicts are re-examined as evidence accumulates. Re-fetch before relying on this; the page above always carries the current score.",
  "scored_at": "2026-08-11",
  "model": "claude-opus-5",
  "occupation": {
    "title": "Avionics Technicians",
    "soc_code": "49-2091",
    "category": "Trades",
    "us_employment": 18830,
    "median_annual_wage": 82280
  },
  "verdict": "SAFE",
  "risk_resistance": 71,
  "contested": false,
  "near_boundary": false,
  "dimensions": {
    "task_resistance": 15,
    "embodiment": 18,
    "liability_shield": 14,
    "trust_premium": 9,
    "judgment_accountability": 15
  },
  "reasoning": {
    "task_resistance": "At 15, the resistant core is physical fault isolation — pin-to-pin continuity checks on a chafed harness behind a cockpit panel, tracing an intermittent that only appears at altitude or after a hard landing — while the parts AI genuinely takes (BITE code lookup, IPC and wiring-manual search, work-card drafting) keep it out of the 17-plus range where nothing offloads.",
    "embodiment": "18 reflects work done inside the airframe and on open ramps: contorting into avionics bays and wheel wells, crimping and pinning connectors by feel, hauling test sets and pitot-static rigs to the aircraft in whatever weather the gate has, with only bench work on removed LRUs happening in a controlled shop.",
    "liability_shield": "14 rests on the FAA certificate — A&P under 14 CFR Part 65 or repairman/repair-station authorisation under Part 145 — where your signature on the maintenance record and return-to-service entry is enforceable against you personally, short of the 18-20 band because much avionics work is signed off under a repair station's certificate rather than your own individual ticket.",
    "trust_premium": "9 because the pilot, dispatcher and lead who ask for you by name after you found the wiring fault three others chased do so within an employer relationship — the airline or MRO holds the customer, and your work is auditable from the logbook by any other certificated tech.",
    "judgment_accountability": "15 is the no-fault-found squawk: with no code, a schedule waiting and an MEL that may or may not cover it, you decide whether to release the aircraft or ground it, and that call is yours in the record rather than a step in a task card."
  },
  "rationale": "The work is physically embedded in airframes: pulling and terminating wire bundles in bulkheads and wing roots, bench-testing and swapping LRUs, running ramp-side troubleshooting on intermittent faults that no schematic predicts, and torquing connectors in spaces built for hands, not robots. AI will absorb the paperwork layer — fault-code interpretation, manual lookup, wiring-diagram search, logbook drafting — but a certificated human still signs the return-to-service entry and personally carries FAA liability for it. The diagnostic call on an unrepeatable squawk, where the choice is ground the aircraft or release it, is exactly the accountable judgment that doesn't delegate.",
  "outlook": "Headcount stays roughly flat with fleet size while the paperwork and diagnostic-lookup portion of the day shrinks; the techs who hold sign-off authority and handle install and intermittent-fault work gain leverage, and pure bench-swap roles thin out.",
  "what_would_raise_it": {
    "levers": [
      {
        "dimension": "liability_shield",
        "change": "FAA formalizing that AI-generated diagnostic or maintenance recommendations cannot substitute for a certificated A&P/repairman's independent determination — e.g., an FAA policy statement or Part 43 rulemaking requiring the signing technician to document independent verification of any software-proposed corrective action, mirroring the agency's existing insistence that the RTS signature is personal and non-delegable. Similarly, an EASA Part-145 AMC addition on AI decision-support would propagate to US repair stations serving EU-registered fleets.",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 3
      },
      {
        "dimension": "liability_shield",
        "change": "Avionics-specific certification tightening as fly-by-wire and NextGen ADS-B/CPDLC systems proliferate: an FAA requirement that installation and RTS of software-loadable avionics LRUs be signed by a repairman with type-specific authorization, narrowing who can sign at all. Data-load and software-config errors are already a recurring NTSB/SDR theme.",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 2
      },
      {
        "dimension": "task_resistance",
        "change": "Task-mix shift is genuine here: once fault-code interpretation, IPC/wiring-diagram search and logbook drafting are absorbed, the residual day is intermittent-fault chasing, wire-bundle chafe hunting in bulkheads, and connector-level repair — the tier where no schematic predicts the fault. The score rises by subtraction of the routine tier rather than by any new capability barrier.",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 2
      },
      {
        "dimension": "judgment_accountability",
        "change": "If the ground-or-release call becomes more consequential and more attributable — e.g., FAA SMS rules under Part 5 being extended to Part 145 repair stations requiring named accountability for deferral decisions and MEL applications, plus airline SMS audit trails naming the deciding technician — the exposure attached to the judgment increases.",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 2
      },
      {
        "dimension": "embodiment",
        "change": "Little headroom; already 18. The only route is fleet-level: composite airframes and dense integrated modular avionics push more work into confined-access inspection and bonding/grounding work that is harder to fixture for robots than legacy aluminum harness runs.",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 1
      }
    ],
    "ceiling_note": "Trust premium has no realistic route: buyers are airlines and repair stations purchasing airworthiness compliance, not a human touch, and no passenger selects a carrier by who signed the RTS. Any perceived premium is the liability shield wearing a different hat. Total realistic headroom is roughly 8-10 points, nearly all of it regulatory, and it is offset over time by the automation of the paperwork tier and by OEM prognostic health-monitoring systems that shift diagnosis upstream to the manufacturer."
  },
  "adjudication": null,
  "employment_history": {
    "points": [
      {
        "y": 2017,
        "emp": 18620,
        "wage": 62650
      },
      {
        "y": 2018,
        "emp": 18860,
        "wage": 64140
      },
      {
        "y": 2019,
        "emp": 21750,
        "wage": 65700
      },
      {
        "y": 2020,
        "emp": 21390,
        "wage": 67840
      },
      {
        "y": 2021,
        "emp": 18910,
        "wage": 69280
      },
      {
        "y": 2022,
        "emp": 20200,
        "wage": 75450
      },
      {
        "y": 2023,
        "emp": 21280,
        "wage": 77420
      },
      {
        "y": 2024,
        "emp": 20900,
        "wage": 81390
      },
      {
        "y": 2025,
        "emp": 18830,
        "wage": 82280
      }
    ],
    "from": 2017,
    "to": 2025,
    "change_pct": 1.1,
    "comparable_from": 2019,
    "spans_soc_revision": true
  },
  "pivots": [],
  "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms"
}