The day a single loose coax connector shut down a whole hangar

We spent a full eight-hour shift chasing a phantom comms fault on a regional jet, only to find a BNC that was barely finger-tight behind a panel. The whole crew had signed off the system as operational after a recent avionics upgrade. Anyone else had a simple connector issue cause a major headache like that?

3 comments

3 Comments

charlie_ellis1mo ago

Remember a time we lost all telemetry from a remote weather station for a week. Sent a guy out on a snowmobile twice to check the gear. Turned out a field mouse had chewed through the main data cable where it went into the ground... the little plastic jacket was still there, looked perfect from a distance. Makes you check the simple stuff twice now.

thomas_martinez1mo ago

Man, that's wild. Honestly I used to get so mad when tech would fail and just assume it was some big complicated system error. Your story really shows how it's almost always something stupid and simple. That mouse just going to town on a cable while the outside looks fine... makes me feel dumb for all the times I overthought a problem. Now I force myself to check the easy stuff first, even if it seems too obvious.

finley7291mo ago

Quoting you saying "barely finger-tight" - that's actually the opposite of what usually gets me. I'd argue finger-tight is actually too tight for a BNC connector on avionics gear. You want it snug but not cranked down, because over-tightening can deform the center pin or crack the dielectric. Had a guy on my crew strip a bulkhead connector once because he used a tool on it when it should've been hand-tightened only. The real culprit is usually when someone doesn't line up the keyway right before spinning it on, so it feels tight but the center pin never actually mates.