Whilst doing the walkround of our aircraft yesterday I found a refuellers anti-static connector pin still in the wing of our jet. This pin is about 15cm long, quite heavy and looks like a steel headphone jack, but much bigger. Approximately 5cm of it fits into the wing and the remaining 10 cm hangs out of the wing with the cable attached to the refueller(obviously in this case both the cable and the refueller were not there!!)
Anyway I pulled it out (it wasn't attached to anything but the aircraft) and continued the walkround.
Anyway, long and short of it was the jet had come in from Copenhagen that morning and had not been refuelled prior to us getting to it. We reached the jet before our engineers that day, so they hadn't a hand in it. Therefore we surmise that the connector pin had been inserted in Copenhagen during refuelling and had become detached from its cable and subsequently left there. The aircraft had flown back to the UK with it still in. Given that we've normally completed our walkrounds prior to the re-fuellers getting there and refuelling is automatic, there would have been no way for our in-bound crew to have checked it. Additionally 'our' engineers at CPH are supposed to do a pre-departure walkround and confirm that everything is as it should be.
The pin was easy to see and also very easy to remove and could have dropped out at anytime from taxi to landing. Wouldn't fancy kicking that up at V1!.
Anyone else found 'interesting things' attached/stuck to their aircraft? Come on don't be shy.