That time I learned the hard way about safety wire pliers at O'Hare

I was doing a quick turnaround on a 737 at O'Hare last winter and reached for my safety wire pliers, but they were gone. Somebody borrowed them and left me with a pair that had the jaws misaligned. I spent 20 minutes fighting a simple wire lock on a landing gear door before I just gave up and used my old school pliers and twisted it by hand. Has anyone else had a tool go missing at a busy airport and just had to make do with what you had?

3 comments

3 Comments

charles_baker286d agoMost Upvoted

I mean, come on, it's just safety wire. You can twist that stuff by hand in like 30 seconds. Sounds more like a case of bad luck than a real crisis at O'Hare.

nelson.wren6d ago

Put away the safety wire pliers and see how your fingers feel after twisting twenty of those things in a row on the tarmac in February. @elliot_roberts probably would have traded you that Snap-on for just the first three twists. It's not a crisis until you're bleeding into the wire and still have fifteen more to go before the next pushback.

elliot_roberts6d ago

My last trip through Chicago Midway I had a guy borrow my terminal block screwdriver and drop it down a floor grate near gate B7. I spent 45 minutes trying to fish it out with a coat hanger before a janitor came by with a magnet on a stick. That screwdriver was a Snap-on I'd had since my first year at the airline, and I still think about it whenever I walk past that spot.