THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, January 14, 1995 TAG: 9501140204
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B7 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium: 72 lines
Four rags and metal shavings were found in the fuel system of an F-16 fighter-bomber after it returned to the Virginia Air National Guard from an Air Force repair depot.
The Virginia Air Guard's discovery in November alerted officials at the depot in Utah to a problem with ``migrating shavings'' that was affecting other single-engine F-16s. And it prompted changes in procedures to keep the contamination from happening again.
``It's a bad deal,'' one Guard airman familiar with the situation said. ``One rag over the top of a port feeding the engine, (and) it's catastrophic.''
National Guard commanders with Virginia's 192nd Fighter Group were more sanguine in their assessment of the contamination's potential for causing a crash or other problems.
``I hesitate to say it would have been a catastrophe,'' said Col. Bill Jones, the 192nd's commander. ``I don't know of a single F-16 accident attributable to rags in the fuel cell.''
On the other hand, he said, ``we don't much like it, and we let a lot of people know about it.''
Col. Raymond W. Davies of the logistics center at Hill Air Force Base in Ogden, Utah, said, ``Even with those rags there . . . you might have had some restricted fuel-flow problems, but not something that could have caused total fuel starvation.
``We haven't had any reports of rags left in airplanes before, and we haven't had any reports of rags left in airplanes since,'' Davies said.
After Virginia Air Guard sergeants Phil Thomas and Charlie Wood found the hand towel-size rags and metal in a right rear fuselage fuel tank, the Ogden Air Logistics Center spot-checked 10 F-16s that had come off the center's repair line.
The depot found fuel systems of ``about four'' of the 10 were contaminated with metal shavings.
``There wasn't anyone aware they were having migrating shavings,'' Davis said.
While still under investigation, the rags case is ``a workmanship problem, and we think this is an isolated case,'' said Davies, chief of the logistic center's aircraft operations division.
The Virginia F-16 was flown to Hill Air Force Base in June for a modification designed to double the plane's flying life. The work involves drilling through the wings to install stiffeners inside the fuselage and wing. The drilling produced the metal shavings, officials said. The bits of metal are supposed to be vacuumed out of the aircraft.
How the rags got into the plane's fuel cells is not clear, Davies said. He theorized the cloths were used to sop up fuel when workers were changing a fuel pump in the jet fighter. None of the 10 to 15 workers in the depot's F-16 fuel group took responsibility for the incident.
Lt. Col. Bob Seifert of the Virginia Air Guard flew the plane back to Richmond on Nov. 8.
``There was no indication there was anything wrong, and there was no damage'' during the several-hour flight home, said Jones.
The 192nd's maintenance shop found the contaminants Nov. 16 during an acceptance inspection of the aircraft, which is routine for airplanes returning from major modification work.
Davies said depot procedures have been changed since the problem came to light. After planes are test flown when they come out of the modification production line, crews now drain the fuel from the aircraft and purge the fuel lines. Then they open eight access panels and vacuum debris from the fuel cells. by CNB