$14M engine of US Air Force F-35 is destroyed after maintenance engineer left FLASHLIGHT inside it before test run
- The F-35 was undergoing maintenance at Luke Air Force Base in Glendale, Arizona, on March 15, 2023, when the incident occurred.
- The engineer left a flashlight inside the engine: the three-person crew did not follow the standard procedure for accounting for all equipment
- When the plane’s engines were turned on, they heard a clanging sound, and when they turned them off, they saw that the blades were damaged.
A $14 million fighter jet’s engine was irreparably damaged after an engineer left a flashlight inside the engine, sealed it and turned it on, a military investigation has found.
The accident occurred at Luke Air Force Base in Glendale, Arizona, in March 2023 on a 56th Fighter Wing aircraft.
An F-35 aircraft was undergoing a routine inspection of its propulsion system and a metering plug was inserted into the engine fuel line.
The addition of the plug was mandated across the Air Force’s F-35 fleet to correct an issue discovered after a fuel system malfunction in December 2022. According to the F-35, it was “one of the last aircraft to be completed.” to the report.
An F-35 is photographed at Luke Air Force Base in Glendale, Arizona, where the crash occurred in March 2023.
A flashlight supposedly similar to this one was left inside the $14 million engine and then the engine was turned on.
A three-man engineering team from the 62nd Aircraft Maintenance Squadron, 56th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron, then sealed the aircraft by inserting a test plug and inspected the engine.
The engines were turned off in the hangar and the plane was allowed to run for 13 minutes.
None of the warning sirens sounded and the test proceeded as usual.
But when they turned off the engine, engineers heard a clanging sound.
“After the shutdown,” the report states, “one of the maintenance technicians completed a post-op inspection and discovered damage to the engine blades.
“He reported the engine damage to the maintenance dispatcher and stated, ‘I think I just swallowed a flashlight.’
The accident occurred at this base, with the 62nd Aircraft Maintenance Unit, 56th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron.
An F-35 on the runway at Luke Air Force Base in Arizona.
Damage to the engine was calculated at $4 million, meaning the entire $14 million engine had to be scrapped.
The Air Force Accident Investigation Board found that engineers did not follow correct procedures or check tools to ensure all their tools were accounted for before starting the engine.
They also failed to use the standard procedure for attaching all the necessary items to themselves.
No one was injured as a result of the incident.
Luke officials have not said whether any of the technicians involved were disciplined for the incident.
“Any administrative actions taken regarding the March 15 F-35 incident are not subject to public disclosure,” Capt. Scarlett Trujillo, a spokeswoman for Air Education and Training Command, said in response to a question from the military news website Task & Purpose.
The Air Force says every member of the maintenance team was kept up to date and qualified to perform all tasks.