A be-1900 first officer noted the engine inlet covers during his early morning preflight and assumed...

Narrative:

It was brought to my attention that an incident had occurred where the engine inlet covers had been ingested into the engines. That morning I did the preflight inspection and noted the covers but had been under the impression they were there to keep the engines warm and would be removed prior to the flight by the ground crew. Upon my post-flight inspection in that first destination I did not notice these covers in the engine inlet. The only explanation I can think of is that the inlets are similar to pillows and may have been very compressed and had not re-inflated yet and were therefore not very visible. In addition they are the same color of the inlet and depending on their location at the time; may not have been visible. During the engine startup and throughout the flight; no abnormal indications were noted in performance or engine temperature that would have given reason to believe anything out of the usual had occurred. This event was discovered to have occurred after maintenance personal identified the inlet covers on the following morning during their daily ron checks. This event occurred during the first flight of the day. Individuals involved were the ground crew in the originating station for their lack of properly removing the inlet covers and myself and the captain for not finding the covers during the post-flight inspection upon completion of our flight.ground agents should have their own checklists for making sure their tasks are complete. As well as improved awareness during startup to notice the covers had not been removed. Also the inlet plugs could be colored red instead of silver making them highly visible instead of the same color of the intake.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: A BE-1900 First Officer noted the engine inlet covers during his early morning preflight and assumed the ground crew would remove them but was told later that the engines were run all day after ingesting the covers during start that morning.

Narrative: It was brought to my attention that an incident had occurred where the engine inlet covers had been ingested into the engines. That morning I did the preflight inspection and noted the covers but had been under the impression they were there to keep the engines warm and would be removed prior to the flight by the ground crew. Upon my post-flight inspection in that first destination I did not notice these covers in the engine inlet. The only explanation I can think of is that the inlets are similar to pillows and may have been very compressed and had not re-inflated yet and were therefore not very visible. In addition they are the same color of the inlet and depending on their location at the time; may not have been visible. During the engine startup and throughout the flight; no abnormal indications were noted in performance or engine temperature that would have given reason to believe anything out of the usual had occurred. This event was discovered to have occurred after maintenance personal identified the inlet covers on the following morning during their daily RON checks. This event occurred during the first flight of the day. Individuals involved were the ground crew in the originating station for their lack of properly removing the inlet covers and myself and the Captain for not finding the covers during the post-flight inspection upon completion of our flight.Ground agents should have their own checklists for making sure their tasks are complete. As well as improved awareness during startup to notice the covers had not been removed. Also the inlet plugs could be colored red instead of silver making them highly visible instead of the same color of the intake.

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.

Attributes
ACN	1150063
Time
Date	201402
Local Time Of Day	0601-1200
Place
Locale Reference	ZZZ.Airport
State Reference	US
Environment
Flight Conditions	VMC
Light	Dawn
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	Beech 1900
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 121
Flight Phase	Parked
Flight Plan	IFR
Component
Aircraft Component	Cowling
Person 1
Function	First Officer Pilot Not Flying
Qualification	Flight Crew Commercial
Events
Anomaly	Aircraft Equipment Problem Critical Deviation - Procedural Published Material / Policy

A be-1900 first officer noted the engine inlet covers during his early morning preflight and assumed the ground crew would remove them but was told later that the engines were run all day after ingesting the covers during start that morning.