Article

2024-01-20 -Short Attention Span Theater-

$14M engine of US Air Force F-35 is destroyed after maintenance engineer left FLASHLIGHT inside it before test run

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Posted by Skidmark 2024-01-20 00:01|| || Front Page|| [23 views ] Top

#1 Looks like a personal light.

An authorized tool should have been inventoried before the engine was started.

Posted by Skidmark 2024-01-20 00:59|| 2024-01-20 00:59|| Front Page Top

#2 Survived an F-35 engine ingestion and still working.

Posted by Besoeker 2024-01-20 02:29|| 2024-01-20 02:29|| Front Page Top

#3 ...This sort of thing shouldn't be happening, but it does whenever people are involved - doesn't make it better, but it does explain it. Foreign Object Damage - or FOD, to use the colloquial term - is a constant threat to the care and feeding of airplanes and their crews.

The RAF actually lost an F-35 about a year ago because some poor sod left an inlet cover in the inlet, and at least two preflight inspections didn't catch it. The good news here is that the Luke AFB bird will fly again after an unscheduled engine change. The bad news is that the idiot who failed to follow standard, simple, direct, written-in-stone procedure will now be exploring the exciting world of grounds maintenance for what's left of his career.

Mike

Posted by MikeKozlowski 2024-01-20 07:57|| 2024-01-20 07:57|| Front Page Top

#4 ...but I hear there are job openings at Boeing.

Posted by Procopius2k 2024-01-20 08:56|| 2024-01-20 08:56|| Front Page Top

#5 the idiot who failed to follow standard, simple, direct, written-in-stone procedure will now be exploring the exciting world of grounds maintenance for what's left of his career.

Not necessarily. If a diversity hire of P&W, will probably be bumped upstairs or golden parachuted with a NDA. If some poor enlisted airman but of the appropriate box-checking background, will probably be kicked upstairs.

Posted by M. Murcek 2024-01-20 09:36|| 2024-01-20 09:36|| Front Page Top

#6 P2K…you beat me too it…ha

Posted by Warthog 2024-01-20 10:05|| 2024-01-20 10:05|| Front Page Top

#7 ^5 - M.M, I had not even thought of the possibility of these guys being contractors. It's a lot more prevalent now than when I was in - at my last base we had a couple of tech reps each from LockMart, P&W/GE, and the like who were mainly there to assist when not even the TOs could figure something out. These days we don't have enough Airmen on the line to keep things going and the contractors are apparently helping to pick up the slack...at a tidy profit for their employers as well.

Mike

Posted by MikeKozlowski 2024-01-20 10:26|| 2024-01-20 10:26|| Front Page Top

#8 /\ Ref 'contractors.' Also see today's article on 6Jan pipe bombs.

Posted by Besoeker 2024-01-20 10:29|| 2024-01-20 10:29|| Front Page Top

#9 ...but I hear there are job openings at Boeing.

When one door closes, another door opens.

Posted by swksvolFF 2024-01-20 11:46|| 2024-01-20 11:46|| Front Page Top

#10 An authorized tool should have been inventoried before the engine was started.

Seems like a no-brainer to RFID all the tools.

Posted by M. Murcek 2024-01-20 11:49|| 2024-01-20 11:49|| Front Page Top

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