Flashlight found in F-35 engine causes $4 million in damages

An F-35A Lightning IIPhoto byNational Guard

According to a recent report from the Air Force accident investigation, approximately $4 million worth of damage was caused in early 2023 at Luke Air Force Base, Arizona, by an object that was left within an F-35 engine.

According to Air & Space Forces Magazine, the item—a portable flashlight—was accidentally sucked into the engine's air intake on the night of March 15, while the plane was performing maintenance ground runs. Members of the 56th Fighter Wing were the pilots of the plane.

Without incident, a trio of mechanics began the engine as part of a routine idling operation and proceeded to perform standard tests, one of which was to idle the engine for five minutes in order to detect gasoline leaks.

Something didn't seem wrong until the airmen disabled the engine. One of the maintenance workers heard "abnormal noises" when the system was offline. Fortunately, no airmen suffered injuries.

According to the investigation, after inserting a "metering plug into an engine fuel line," one of the maintenance workers checked the inventory of their tools. According to the report, this procedure was carried out prior to another maintenance worker doing a "Before Operations Servicing" examination using the flashlight.

According to the investigators, the maintenance crew left the flashlight on because they didn't follow the normal precautions listed in the Joint Technical Data checklist before to the run.

In addition, the F-35′s Autonomic Logistics Information System (ALIS) was implicated due to "complacency" according to investigators.

"When users reference the required maintenance procedures, they become complacent due to the substantial number of checklists and the difficulty in accessing the correct ones," the survey observed.

As a result of the accident, the following components of the aircraft were damaged: the rotors of stages two through six, the fuel nozzle, the bypass duct, the high pressure compressor, the high pressure turbine, and the fan inlet variable vane, according to the report.

All things considered, the accident's estimated damage cost was $3,933,106.

After finishing the necessary checks for an engine run, the examining maintenance "failed to clear the inlet of foreign objects after they exited the aircraft inlet," according to the report.

The report stated that a flashlight was left within the inlet due to the failure to fulfill checklist activities.

Edited by Newsbreak Contributor Denys Shybinskiy