$4 million in damage...

$4 Million peanuts compared to not catching the mistakes and the inflight fire did occur and did harm to the POTUS. It would be hard to survive being known as the company were a preventable accident killed the head of state.

Can you just imagine the flurry of OMG's and YGTBSM emails and phone calls within Boeings chain of command when this was discovered?
 
If only I knew what an oxygen cleaned tool was. And why it was so important.
 
Gerhardt said:
If only I knew what an oxygen cleaned tool was. And why it was so important.
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I'm no A&P...but as a chemist- probably only certain lubricants (or no lubricants) could be used on the tools to avoid contaminating the oxygen system. Petroleum lubricants react much more easily (burn) in pressurized oxygen.
 
Looks like it happened in April 2016 and was found in Feb 2017. Am I missing something here?
 
Ryanb said:
I'm sure somebody got a spanking after that one

"Boeing...yer fyured! :nono:
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My nephew works there and is probably involved with this airplane. I'll have to ask him what actually happened. He runs a crew that completes new business jets but I think he told me he was going to be part of the team upgrading VC-25.
 
Cap'n Jack said:
I'm no A&P...but as a chemist- probably only certain lubricants (or no lubricants) could be used on the tools to avoid contaminating the oxygen system. Petroleum lubricants react much more easily (burn) in pressurized oxygen.
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Yeah. Once you add an oxidizer to something with a low flash point, very bad things happen.

Some years ago there was an article in Soaring magazine. An O2 tank was being used to top off an O2 system in a sailplane. With bad results. I can't remember the exact reason for the explosion. It doesn't take very much contamination at all to generate an uncontrolled release of energy when you are dealing with O2.
 
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Pure O2 is bad juju.
High pressure O2 is very bad juju.
Very reactive.
Must use special lubricants, metals, etc that won't oxidize and cause explosion.
 
Also, take a look at an O2 pressure gauge. Note that it reads "USE NO OIL" on the face. In addition to the combustion possibility of mixing O2 and oil, breathing in the vapor of oil while on oxygen has the potential to incapacitate the user. Petroleum + O2 = BAD.
 
There are videos on YT of pure oxygen hitting a hydrocarbon material. It seems that I saw several years ago on a pilot forum (here maybe?) a story about someone using oil or grease on an aviation transfill system (and it was not pretty).
 
Chapstick (or Vaseline) - on lips, then oxygen mask, on face. Test to 100%, and then visit to flight surgeon, and limited social life for a couple of weeks.
 
So, someone used their everyday tools on an O2 system. (Obviously, they didn't put grease in the fittings.) At some point in time later, someone figured out that the proper tools were not used which triggered a OMG we have to replace the whole system for $4 million.

Sound about right?
 
I had a coworker tell me he had worked on AF1. I asked if POTUS was onboard at the time. He said no. So I told him that he didn't work on AF1. He didn't understand so I explained it to him. He got mad and called me a dick.

Not the first time or last time that I heard that name. :cool:
 
wsuffa said:
There are videos on YT of pure oxygen hitting a hydrocarbon material. It seems that I saw several years ago on a pilot forum (here maybe?) a story about someone using oil or grease on an aviation transfill system (and it was not pretty).
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I was told many moons ago not to leave oily rags sitting around the garage. I don't think it takes "pure" O-twce for spontaneous combustion.
 
LOX and OBOGS are two of the things on aircraft you don't screw around with if you don't know what you are doing.
 
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