A Qantas Airbus A380 operated 34 flights over 294 hours with a big loose tool inside one of its engines. Big can mean a lot of things it’s all relative after all. But this tool was way bigger than you’re imagining. Maybe you’re imagining a 12-inch-long hammer or maybe a six-inch screwdriver. This tool, the identity of which remains unspecified, was 4 feet long and had been stuck in an outboard left engine’s inlet for nearly a month.
It was an accident of course. The tool was left behind after a routine borescope inspection on December 6 at Los Angeles International Airport. Maintenance staff didn’t notice the tool in their post-inspection checks, so the plane was cleared for service a couple of days later.
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The jet made multiple passenger flights between Los Angeles and Melbourne, Australia with the giant tool lodged inside one of its engines. That’s around 16 hours nonstop one way with a tool just kind of hanging out in an engine.
The tool remained stuck in the engine’s low-pressure compressor for nearly a month, after which it was deformed by the powerful airflows within the engine. The engine itself, however, was totally fine. No damage at all. The tool was eventually found during a scheduled maintenance check back in Los Angeles a month later.
“The ATSB investigation found that maintenance engineers did not notice the tool had been left in the engine’s low-pressure compressor case when conducting checks for foreign objects at the completion of the borescope inspection task,” ATSB Chief Commissioner Angus Mitchell said in a news release, per Flight Global.
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau added that the engineers who originally lost the tool in the engine forgot to report it. So they were fully aware, they just didn’t do anything about it. The plane was then released for its normal flight schedule.
Qantas has since set their staff down for a stern talking-to in the hopes that they will be reminded about the “importance of ensuring all tooling is returned and actioned by tool store personnel.” That’s a very official and fancy way of saying, “stop leaving your fucking tools in the engines, you dipshits.”
