Tools found in Aircraft

[plankwings]

During my airline days in the mid '80s, I looked up the vent pipe (tail-cone) of a B737 engine exhaust, that had just arrived from the factory and saw a ratchet, extension and socket attached. I think there were a few bolts as well.

Apparently a quick tailpipe change between US and Auz.............Hawaii?

Bigslim

[b29driver]

I was operating a highspeed lift out of KSAT many years back for a small transport company out of Dallas. I was standing in the mechanized tunnel exchanging niceties with the exiting customers after my highspeed lift device was delivered by another crew and awaiting said crew to exit and hand over the keys.

As the customer un-assing proceeded to approximated 1/2 capacity I was told by about 15 people with window seats on the right side behind the wing that something had fallen out of the engine after landing.

Because so many people said the same thing I was pretty well convinced that something really did fall of the right giant jet propulsion unit, so I called the man in the tall building out in the middle of the pasture and requested that he send one of his finest government employees out in pickup truck with a red light on it and see if he could find something.

Shortly there after the fine government employee presented me with a really used up, smashed , crushed, bent, knarled, and completely scuffed up, formerly shiny Ray O Vac 2 D cell flashlight that had ridden in from Dallas as a stow away in the right thrust reverser. After having contract MX inspect things on the B737-200 I had telephonic communications with MX control in Dallas and asked them if employee #---- wanted his flashlight back. Strangely, it seems, no one was missing a flashlight.

[DH82EH]

I didn't find these, but I hope I can never top these ones.
A co-worker was sent into the back of an Airbus 320 to investigate why the lav handle would not stow properly. Probably had someting to do with the duffel bags full of cocaine!! . The funniest part of that tale is that Customs had released the aircraft about an hour previously. When the word got let out the customs officers literally raced each other to the plane! Something to do with getting credit for the find . My poor friend was dragged in like he was the criminal! He was detained and questioned for hours! Ummmm..... Mr. officer sir. If he was trying to smuggle this stuff do you really think he would have called you guys? . Duh!
On a different occasion the best friend of the first guy, doing a weekly check of the same aircraft, opened the main landing gear door to find a poor guy frozen rock solid around the keel beam!!! He'd apparently climbed on board in Cuba. The aircraft left Cuba three days previously and had been flying daily!!
It took the better part of the day to thaw this poor guy out and for the coroner to remove him.
Kinda makes the can openers, flashlights, sockets, extensions, wrenches and bucking bar I found seem a bit trivial.

Andy Scott

[PropsRule]

I think you're making all that up, Andy.

(By the way, the frozen guy was actually from the Dominican Republic).



I still have the '60's vintage Zippo lighter I found in a CS2F (Canadian S-2) Tracker. Plus every bucking bar I have was found, six in total I believe.

[Ashley Briggs]

Disasembling a P39 wing which had been recovered from Russia. What at first appeared to be an spar which had bulged under the skin due to corrosion was in fact a 3/8 spanner rivetted into the skin line.

Cheers,
Ash.

[Wildchild]

Fathers comment here:

"I was going through my Mooney for monthy cleaning, since i was renting it out to a friend of mine, and saw cocaine under the seat! As you can guess I cut him off from renting my plane an he goes missing 2 weeks later.

A few years after that i was reading a newspaper article, and a airboat driver ran over a plane that was burried in the swamp. What probably happened was he was set up to land in the swamp at night (fake lights), they come back 2 hours later, pull the cocaine out of the plane, and cover it up."

[APG85]

I use to routinely find tools in the flapwells of our C-130's when they would return from PDM. It was so common in the 80's that we would almost make a competition out of it to see who could find a tool the quickest. I heard a report of a flashlight found in the fuel tank of a Herc when it returned from PDM a few years ago. They found it during subsequent fuel work...

[ZRX61]

A co-worker was sent into the back of an Airbus 320 to investigate why the lav handle would not stow properly. Probably had someting to do with the duffel bags full of cocaine!! . The funniest part of that tale is that Customs had released the aircraft about an hour previously. When the word got let out the customs officers literally raced each other to the plane! Something to do with getting credit for the find . My poor friend was dragged in like he was the criminal! He was detained and questioned for hours! Ummmm..... Mr. officer sir. If he was trying to smuggle this stuff do you really think he would have called you guys? . Duh!
Andy Scott

Along similar lines, decades ago I worked in the docks. One night the Customs snagged a coach that had a 55gallon drum of booze hidden under the floor. Customs were over joyed at the find etc & drove the bus over to impound at the local Police station.... where the cops found ANOTHER 55 gallon drum of booze the Customs yahoos had missed...

[Noha307]

I found out mid-to-late last month that when the TSWM acquired our FG-1D Corsair there was a 1960s era flashlight in the in the horizontal stabilizer. It must have been left in there for years while the plane was sitting outside. The battery acid leaked out and corroded most of the internal structure of the stabilizer which necessitated a rebuild.

[jmkendall]

Wow, honestly I am freakin amazed!

In 28 years of Army Aviation I can't think of a single time I have found any tools. I'm sure it happens but....well...do you folks have any idea of what happens when we lose just ONE washer? I've seen an aircraft grounded till it was found or a TI came out and certified that it had not fallen anywhere critical.

I mean we do tool inventories after each job. We have such strict tool control that I always thought it was an industry standard.

[cooper9411]

It's supposed to be an industry standard but I 've listened to people who have "worked " on their own aircraft tell how they dropped something and could not reach it and then ask why I charged them for removing it?

[love2gofly]

Working on a Piper Arrow IV one day I found a ratchet and socket attached to a wing spar carrythrough bolt. After removal of the ratchet we decided to check the torque on the bolts... several were just hand tight. When that airplane had arrived for the inspection the owner complained that the oil temp was high. When we pulled the cowl we discovered the world's largest bird's nest sitting on top of the oil cooler, completely blocking the airflow through it.

An acquaintance of mine owned a share in real nice older bonanza, I don't remember what model but I remember it had a pressure carb, this airplane was pristine on the outside, but seemed tail heavy compared to other bonanzas he'd flown. He was the "new guy" in the partnership, but he finally talked the other owners into investigating. They found around 50 pounds of kitty litter way back in the tail.

I have a nice collection of "tumbled smooth" fuel dipsticks from rolling around inside C-152 fuel tanks.

[ZRX61]

I have a nice collection of "tumbled smooth" fuel dipsticks from rolling around inside C-152 fuel tanks.

Was in the back of a DC3 one time replacing yet another pin that the ground crew had snapped when towing it with the tail wheel locked.. & found the remains of several others laying there....

[Warbirdnerd]

An example of a lost tool causing a very bad ending.

A loose screwdriver that became jammed in the side of a plane as it was doing aerobatics over Feilding caused a crash that killed a Palmerston North doctor and his friend.

A Civil Aviation Authority report into the crash - which claimed the lives of plane owner and pilot Ralph Saxe, 51, and his friend Brett Ireland, 50 - was released today, almost a year to the day after the 2012 crash at 10.45am on January 23.

The report, written by safety investigator Alan Moselen, found the crash was the result of design flaws in the plane that led to a screwdriver getting stuck in the elevator controls of the plane during a "slow roll" manoeuvre.

As Saxe, a member of Warbirds, entered a steep dive immediately following the slow roll he was unable to get the elevation needed to prevent the plane from slamming into the ground in Timona Park, Feilding.

The forces were so strong that the aircraft nose, engine and wings "created deep ground scars then virtually disintegrated".

The crash was not survivable.

Three witnesses to the crash were flying model aircraft at the park when the aircraft passed within 50 metres of them, moments before ground impact.

The plane rolled to the right in the moments before impact, and the report states this was probably a result of Saxe trying to "avoid a line of houses situated on the western side of the park".

In investigating the crash the CAA found a "stubby" type screwdriver 15 metres from the main impact site, which the report says could have been sitting in the fuselage of the plane for a long period of time.

It is not the first time rogue objects have become jammed in Yak 52 aircraft elevator controls.

In Essex in 2004 a UK pilot managed to recover from a aerobatic manoevre after a cellphone left in the aircraft two months earlier had penetrated a safety barrier and lodged itself in the elevator.

Saxe's Yak 52 did not have a safety barrier installed.

In March 2012, as a result of the crash, the CAA issued a mandate for Yak 52 owners to fit a barrier.

They also called on all Yak 52 operators worldwide to check for loose objects in the fuselage before flying.

Found it here:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/manawatu-standar ... ash-report

[ZRX61]

In investigating the crash the CAA found a "stubby" type screwdriver 15 metres from the main impact site, which the report says could have been sitting in the fuselage of the plane for a long period of time.

It could have been sitting in the field for just as long.. did they dust it for fingerprints? From the report it would appear they placed it in the aircraft part to take the photo?