Occasionally, you hear stories about surgeons who leave sponges or surgical implements inside patients before sewing them up. Here's a similar tale involving a Qantas A380, which flew on several international trips with a 1.25 m nylon turning tool left inside an outboard engine.
During routine maintenance at Los Angeles International Airport in December 2023, workers misplaced the turning tool — used for internal engine inspections — and despite protocols designed to prevent such occurrences, the aircraft was cleared for service.
Leaving a tool inside a jet engine is bad enough, but even worse were all the missed opportunities to correct it. The tool was reported missing, yet multiple checks failed to locate it. Worst of all, someone even entered false information into the maintenance system to indicate the tool had been found.
Qantas's head of safety Mark Cameron insisted the tool "could have easily dislodged and fallen out on the ground. It wouldn't have caused any impact to the engine itself."
Australia's transport safety regulator disagreed. "Doesn't matter whether it's the tip of a screwdriver or a one, one-and-a-quarter-metre-length nylon tool, regardless of what was the makeup of the tool itself doesn't make it any higher or lower risk," said the ATSB's chief commissioner.
[Via ABC News]
Previously:
• Qantas sells decommissioned 747 airplane bar carts, stocked
• World's longest nonstop commercial flight takes off this week
