ATSB is investigating a FOD event on Qantas A380, with a tool found inside the engine in February 2024.

Please keep in mind I have no major airline or Part 121 experience. Most of my experience is with helicopters, both military and Part 135.

I can't speak to Qantas' (or the repair station's) Tool Control program, but typically all boxes are shadowed.

If you take tools out of your box for line work, you would create a "mini inventory" of tools removed and placed into your tool bag.

If it's a tool room tool, you would exchange one of your tool chips for the tool.

If the tool was reported missing, there should have been a search until it was found. However, most tool control programs have a provision where the DOM can sign off that the tool was search for for a prescribed amount of time, unable to be found, and is presumed to not be on the aircraft in any critical areas.

Not all missing tools go reported due to fear of retribution. Not all tool control programs require a two-person signoff to close the tool box.

I don't know how big the "compressor turning tool" is for the A380's engine, but it feels like it should have been hard to miss...
 
RooflessVW said:
Please keep in mind I have no major airline or Part 121 experience.

Not all missing tools go reported due to fear of retribution.
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I have both, and you're absolutely right.

I've found more tools, inside engines and out, and all over the various crevasses and unreachable places in planes, that I could make my own second tool box. The average passenger airliner would probably be 200 lbs lighter if all the tools lost in them over their lives were recovered out of them. I worked at one airline where we had engines from Pratt, GE, and Rolls. I wont say who, but one high pressure turbine that we got from one repair shop had a 3/8 wrench sitting inside the sump, barely visible even if you were looking for it. I just happened to see it when I was giving it a good look over. This kind of thing happened all.the.time.

And you had to be careful who you trusted to tell about things like this, because you didnt want to become an involuntary blood donor on your way to your car after your shift was over. Because that was not unheard of.
 
Yesterday, I visited a local salvage yard with a friend. I had my own tool bag, since I wanted to "shop" as well.....LOL.

I wandered several rows, and visited several dismantled vehicle examples. I found several sockets, screw drivers, pliers, and even a pair of side cutters just laying on the ground or inside vehicles that I stopped at.

My point is that unless someone has been through formal training for the care, placement and replacement of tools while working on a piece of equipment, the chances are they are more than likely going to misplace a tool at sometime or another.
 
I bet someone had done a borescope and left a piece of the tool behind the fan. If that was the case then there was never really any danger of catastrophic proportions. The external tools of the borescope kits are plastic. But, the poor guy is going to get a few days off work for it I bet.
 
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I have friends there were A@P for major airlines and was old in conversation all of the above . About tools 50 years ago, Things are the same but different.
 
Pretty sure this is why airline mechanics often use RFID based toolkits that "scan" for missing parts at the end of a job.
 
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