flight safety detectives episode 222 - $4 million mistake on air force one

Oil and oxygen don’t mix on airplanes. A crew doing maintenance on the Air Force One oxygen system ignored safety procedures resulting in $4 million dollars of damage to the plane.

The damage was caused by maintenance activity on the oxygen system of a U.S. Air Force VC-25A, a 747 aircraft that regularly flies the President of the United States. This event occurred in 2016.

John Goglia and Todd Curtis share evidence that crew did not follow the VC-25A’s aircraft maintenance manual procedures for cleaning the tools, parts, and components before performing leak checks on the oxygen system.
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This is perhaps the highest profile incident of an aircraft damaged due to improper oxygen system maintenance procedures. John notes that failure to follow procedures is the FAA’s top cause for maintenance problems in commercial aviation.

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