The hangar floor drain grate that changed my whole inspection routine

I was doing a walkaround on a 737 in the hangar in Tulsa last month and slipped on a wet spot near the drain grate. Turns out a bunch of old safety wire and a broken cotter pin had jammed up the grate, water backed up, and I almost ate the concrete. It hit me that I never check the floor itself for debris before I start pulling panels, so now the first thing I do is sweep a 10 foot circle around where I'm gonna work. Has anyone else had a close call like that from something on the floor, or do you all just ignore it like I did for 12 years?

1 comments

1 Comment

lucas49828d ago

That grate thing is wild but honestly it makes sense. Once you start looking down it's amazing what you find, I pulled a mangled socket and a broken drill bit out of a floor drain last week, stuff that could've easily ruined a tire or sent someone sliding. Now I keep a cheap magnetic sweeper in my tool box and run it over the work area before I even open the access panels, takes like 30 seconds and catches most of the small metal crap you'd never see otherwise.