Qantas A380 flew 34 times with tool left in engine

A Qantas A380 flew 34 times with a 1.25-metre nylon tool left inside one of its engines, the ATSB has found. The tool, used to turn an engine compressor on VH-OQI during borescope inspections, is believed to have been left inside during routine maintenance on 6 December 2023 and was not found until a scheduled maintenance check at LAX on 1 January 2024, almost a month later. Despite having flown for around 294 hours with the tool inside, there was no damage found to the engine, though the tool itself was “deformed by high energy airflow”, according to the ATSB’s final report. The turning tool had reportedly been left inside the engine inlet by an engineer who believed it would be needed later in the maintenance, but later engineers did not notice it, and despite a missing tool report being filed, it was not found until the engine was again inspected as part of scheduled maintenance in Los Angeles. “The ATSB investigation found that maintenance engineers did not notice the tool had been left in the engine’s low-pressure compressor case when conducting checks for foreign objects at the completion of the borescope inspection task,” said ATSB chief commissioner Angus Mitchell.<br/>