USAF writes off another aircraft - $224M worth

[LurkerBelow]

Forgetting to remove a fuel tank plug proves to be rather expensive:

Mechanic's Mistake Trashes $244 Million Aircraft - Slashdot

Although photos of the exterior do not reveal that much, inside is a quite a different matter and suggests that the crew were quite lucky that they managed to get down in one piece.

[Rigga]

...when you think of all those little square inches inside that Tank that those pounds sit on - you start to get some idea of seeminlgy low pressures over some very, very large areas... all for the sake of someone's plug - handled without the proper care.

[kbrockman]

It happened before, it will happen again
C141 dec 2001, forgot the plugs= problems while filling it up

[Wiley]

Back in the 1970s, I visited a friend who was doing an exchange tour with the USAF (non flying) at HQ TAC in Norfolk. Hard as I found it to believe then (and even now), he told me that the USAF was then averaging incidents amounting to a hull loss a week due to stupidity and sometimes deliberate sabotage, usually by uncaring or disaffected ground crew. (When I say 'hull loss', I don't mean crashes, but fires or major damage to stationary aircraft.)

It gives some indication of just how big the US military was and still is that they can suffer such losses and accept them.

[Lonewolf_50]

Wiley, since the 70's, the cultural change within the military has profoundly influenced the mishap rate. Per 100,000 hours, it is about a tenth of what it was then. (That's what the Safety Center uses as a metric basis).

Also, the write off of the aircraft is a 707 airframe being lost, with all of the fancy gadgets and gear being salvaged as spares or to fit out a new airframe, depending on programs and funds available.

The "lost 224 million" is a bit misleading, however, losing the asset has an impact on how overused the rest of the assets will be, and as such has an impact on operations that I am not quite sure how to quantify on short notice.

This probably won't be the last time, sadly, that a mild mistake has massive impact on an aircraft's material readiness.

[ORAC]

Then there was this KC-135 in 1999. Not a forgotten bung, but close. The outflow valves were capped off during a 5 year overhaul and never opened back up. The techie used a home made meter for the check and missed that the needle was going round for the second time. The hatch flew over 70m.

[orgASMic]

There was also the VC-10 defuel mishap in Dec 97:

Incidents and Accidents

Full fin tank + sticky gauge (stuck on zero) - wing fuel = Cat 5

[Rigga]

...and a UK Harrier's Demin Water Tank inflated to 2 BAR instead of 2psi (No, it didn't make it to the mark on the [wrong] gauge)

TWANG!!!

Blown Tank and twisted airframe (Well done Happy ?Sqn)
2 years of BAe and 431MU rework, and a few big modifications thrown in while it was there - and it flew again....Happy 431!

[Alber Ratman]

Another Harrier mishap.. Wing bay at Wittering in the early nineties. A Corporal rigger connects up a wing tank test kit to air leak check one of the wings. Inflation kit was a car tyre inflator I believe, that was tied open and connected to the compressed air supply. He left it pressurising and forgot about it, going off to lunch. At about 1230, the lads in the crewroom hear an almighty bang. The access panels to the tank have had enough and have blown off, trashing somebodies private mircolight parked in the hangar. The wing itself was also totally trashed as every cleat that held the wing skins to the ribs had sheared and the skins themselves had a nice wavey pattern were the pockets had been stretched.. Defo Cat 5..