That accident report is up there in the most tortuous use of language applied to a report in recent times. Are the authors native English speakers?
The fact that this item was fished out of the still floating soon to be reef probably explains why the fleet was not grounded immediately.
This has to be the most expensive engine blank in history. (Homer would add, "the most expensive engine blank in history... yet!")
The nonsense applied in the interests of security appear to not concern themselves with the consequential risks that arise from those very security processes.
If the engineers task processes are to be achieved reliably, then need to work without interruption to work flow. None of that happened, there were known breaks in continuity, and there was no mitigation strategy in place, something, like, I dunno... start again from the beginning or similar. At least the pilot should have been able to identify that the LH blank was still in place, assuming that any walk around was actually conducted, after all, secrecy and all that, was he permitted to be aware that the aircraft was actually there? No observer was able to detect the blank was still in place, as there are no observers, (refer security).
The description of the cage for the stowage of the "Red Gear" items conjures a chaotic stowage of items that are known to be critical for flight safety if missed, and yet... it appears to all be bundled into a pile. Sad that there was no shadow board in use that all items fitted needed to be accounted for before the pilot goes walking out to the bird to not do an effective walk around of. That might be a revolutionary idea, after all, we have only been doing that for about a century for aircraft engineering.
The blanks on the tailpipe were reported in this short snapshot of operations to have been variously, dislodged and found on the deck or, noted to be lost at sea... at what point do the guys stop and think about the subject in a holistic manner, as it appears this has issues at both ends of the bird. the intake blanks had no streamers on them, even the words had been removed of
"REMOVE BEFORE FLIGHT" as they were being dislodged, and were considered a FOD hazard, but the blank itself was not?
Even with the redactions that appear to be random, but which include the actual event itself, this is a depressing report.
Sometimes you just have to be embarrassed to be in the same business.
But, at least the important stuff got done, the canopy transparencies were nicely free of salt spray, all the way until the plane got tossed into the Mediterranean.
The Security officers went a long way to not show the intakes, far enough to result in the plane being tossed into the water, and then the powers that be do the report, declassify the report and show a close up of the very intake that the SSO was so damned concerned over. Rest easy though, the intake design is pretty much exactly what would be expected with a design that has a need for LO, and has to work around a vertical plenum chamber right where you don't want it to be. That of course makes for fun flow control, which has a limited number of solutions due to the LO requirement, and so should not be seen, as indeed, they are not. The F-35 is not the first aircraft to have an air intake... not even the first LO air intake, but at least, the red gear stopped some long range photos from some AGI or fisherman's iPhone, at the cost of a 2 year recovery program and a CAT-5 bird.
That there had been at least 4 other events prior to this on the F-35A, B and C models that did not cause an accident seems to suggest that there is room for better information flow across the program so that others may learn and not have to repeat a failure that has been done many times before. The preceding B model event was the 3rd occasion that engine runs had been conducted by the same aircraft with the blank in the intake.
The report shows clearly that if the pip pins were not holding correctly, a blank could be dislodged and enter the engine intake and become hidden inside the intake, behind the lift fan plenum. That information was not known prior to the event, in spite of multiple events across the other operators fleets with having blanks still in the engine. It makes it imperative to have obvious configuration control in place for all matters before an accident shows that it is necessary. The operators take care for gear pins and seat pins etc, but all of these have come along after the event, as this one now does too.
