Narrative:

I performed [a taskcard] in a quality control inspector capacity and missed an extra washer installed on the left-hand horizontal inboard elevator tab control rod on the inboard bushing side causing to only have two threads showing on the bolt behind the nut instead of three threads. All other hardware are the correct ones and effective for the said aircraft. There was no binding or damage found. The elevator tab had free range of motion. [Discovered by] scheduled routine inspection and also due to hardware issues from newly painted airplanes from vendor that had wrong or missing hardware installed.while accomplishing the taskcard and doing the inspection; the extra washer was missed because the area of inspection was covered by grease and it looked like it was part of the bushing. I figured that all hardware installed was secured and tight and that two threads showing was sufficient enough as per industry standards. The mechanic removed the extra washer and reinstalled everything back together thus getting the three threads showing required that was issued for the discrepancies found on other newly painted airplanes from the vendor.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: Aircraft Inspector reported while accomplishing a routine inspection he missed an extra washer that was installed on an elevator tab control rod.

Narrative: I performed [a taskcard] in a Quality Control inspector capacity and missed an extra washer installed on the left-hand horizontal inboard elevator tab control rod on the inboard bushing side causing to only have two threads showing on the bolt behind the nut instead of three threads. All other hardware are the correct ones and effective for the said aircraft. There was no binding or damage found. The elevator tab had free range of motion. [Discovered by] scheduled routine inspection and also due to hardware issues from newly painted airplanes from vendor that had wrong or missing hardware installed.While accomplishing the taskcard and doing the inspection; the extra washer was missed because the area of inspection was covered by grease and it looked like it was part of the bushing. I figured that all hardware installed was secured and tight and that two threads showing was sufficient enough as per industry standards. The mechanic removed the extra washer and reinstalled everything back together thus getting the three threads showing required that was issued for the discrepancies found on other newly painted airplanes from the vendor.

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.