Originally Posted by
Dave B
A bit off thread, but there was a famous case in the RAF when the venerable Whirlwind was still on SAR duties. A new fitter straight out of training reported in, and the sergeant said, "Right lad go and do a Kerosene wash on that engine" so lad goes and gets a compressor wash rig, and fills it with neat Kerosine, after fitting the rig to the engine, the pilot says OK after lighting to ground idle, the lad turns the rig on full, the result can be imagined.
It was the sergeant who got the severe rep, he should have checked the lad knew what he was doing.
Another much older RAF story is of a fitter cleaning a Magneto in a bucket of Avgas, he spun it over, thus destroying an aircraft.
There was a more recent event in UK where an EC135 was severely damaged when the comp wash was carried out using waste Jet A1 rather than de-ionised water by mistake!