Narrative:

I was working a tab freeplay/inspection at the hangar with another technician. Upon the inspection portion; the inspector found that the hardware was improperly installed on three of the bolts for the tabs; 1 on lh side 2 on rh side. The inspector wrote up the improperly installed hardware. We corrected the improperly installed hardware and signed the defects off. Upon completion; one rag was left in the rh tab. A technician working on the aircraft in the hangar on another date found the rag in the tab. I was not here the night it happened but I was told that he just reported the incident to his lead/supervisor.the inspector had suggested/insisted to place a rag in the tab to prevent any hardware such as nuts or washers from falling into the tab. If any hardware fell in; he said we would have to pull the tab off to fish it back out. I was hesitant about putting a rag in the tab; I didn't think it was exactly necessary because I felt I would be able to grab the hardware if it fell and I wouldn't drop any to begin with; but since he insisted; I went ahead with it; since I had never done this job before. Upon completion of the job; the rag was forgotten in the tab when it was bolted all back up. Don't use a rag as a placeholder to catch dropped items. Keep count of the rags you bring with you do to the job; do a count when you are finished with your job.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: Maintenance Technicians reported that while working on a B737-800 elevator tab they neglected to remove rags placed in the tab to prevent any hardware from falling into the tab.

Narrative: I was working a tab freeplay/inspection at the hangar with another technician. Upon the inspection portion; the inspector found that the hardware was improperly installed on three of the bolts for the tabs; 1 on LH side 2 on RH side. The inspector wrote up the improperly installed hardware. We corrected the improperly installed hardware and signed the defects off. Upon completion; one rag was left in the RH tab. A technician working on the aircraft in the hangar on another date found the rag in the tab. I was not here the night it happened but I was told that he just reported the incident to his lead/supervisor.The inspector had suggested/insisted to place a rag in the tab to prevent any hardware such as nuts or washers from falling into the tab. If any hardware fell in; he said we would have to pull the tab off to fish it back out. I was hesitant about putting a rag in the tab; I didn't think it was exactly necessary because I felt I would be able to grab the hardware if it fell and I wouldn't drop any to begin with; but since he insisted; I went ahead with it; since I had never done this job before. Upon completion of the job; the rag was forgotten in the tab when it was bolted all back up. Don't use a rag as a placeholder to catch dropped items. Keep count of the rags you bring with you do to the job; do a count when you are finished with your job.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.