Thirty-four flights and 294 hours in the sky… with a forgotten tool inside the engine. A report from the Australian Transport Safety Bureau published on Thursday, November 14 reveals an incident involving an Airbus A380 operated by Qantas at the end of 2023, after a maintenance operation. The misplaced tool, which measured 1.25 meters but fortunately caused no engine damage, was not discovered until a month after the aircraft returned to commercial service, during a new routine inspection.

Early December 2023, the A380 from Qantas spends three days at Los Angeles airport for a planned maintenance check, carried out by engineers from the Australian company. The investigation determined that it was on December 6 that the tool was used in an engine on the left side of the aircraft, during a visual inspection. The maintenance worker to whom the tool was assigned left work early for a medical appointment. His partner is assigned to another task, and a new partner takes over from them, without the tools being returned and reassigned.

The sought-after tool, but after the plane has left

At 3 p.m., the daily tool inventory confirmed that the tool was still assigned and had not been returned. One of the two agents who inspected the engine in the afternoon, unfamiliar with this operation, left the lathe tool in the engine, thinking it would be used again later. The tool was not found at the end of the day, despite visual inspections of the machine using a flashlight.

Daily inventories over the following two days still show the tool to be missing. Despite this, authorization for the aircraft to return to commercial service was granted, and on the evening of December 8, the aircraft was able to leave for Melbourne. The agent to whom it was assigned, and his supervisor, were absent for several days after December 6. It was only on the supervisor’s return, when the A380 had already left the workshop, that a search began for the tool, and a report was drawn up formally stating that it had disappeared.

However, no inspection of the aircraft was carried out to locate the missing tool, either in Australia or in Los Angeles, where it was passed twice on December 19 and 28. It was only on January 1, 2024, when the A380 returned to the workshops for another scheduled maintenance run, that the tool was located in the engine and removed. The investigation report indicates that the tool was deformed, but did not cause any damage to engine components.

Qantas told investigators it had taken action following the incident. An internal incident report was issued on January 2 to raise engineers’ awareness of the issue, followed in early March by a reminder of procedures.