Narrative:

I thought I had taken out my one foot by one inch metal ruler from my flight bag that I use to cut up the flight release into manageable sections and put it on my tray table with the release on top of it. When I went to review my release my ruler was not under it on my table. When I stowed my tray table I heard a slight 'clank' from behind it as it stowed and thought that maybe my ruler had slid behind my tray table. I could not see anything behind the rudder pedals; it was not in the tray table tracks and the tray table stowed without any problems. As a precaution I had station maintenance come out to check behind the rudder pedal area and the forward east & east to see if by chance it had worked its way back there. After a 40 minute thorough search by two mechanics done multiple times behind the rudder pedal area and east & east the only FOD found was a metal butter knife; ball point pen and a plastic spoon all located out of reach from the cockpit on the floor behind my rudder pedal adjustment cover. We also did a hydraulic power-on rudder pedal movement check while the mechanics checked the area under the floor and under my rudder pedal position adjustment cover verifying that the rudder pedal linkages were not fouled. It is very possible that the 'clank' I heard was the metal butter knife falling to the floor after being trapped behind the tray table as it made the same sound when I dropped it into my side cockpit storage bin to get it out of the way. After a search of the rest of the cockpit (including looking under my seat cover just in case I had put it on the seat and it had slipped to the back of the seat under the cover) I never did find my ruler but it is possible that I it had been lost earlier because when I checked my flight bag the storage area where I kept it was open and unzipped. I also don't believe that the tray table would have stowed ok with a foot long ruler in the tracks. At any rate; after hearing the 'clank' I wanted to be sure that the ruler wasn't where I didn't want it to be. After the thorough search and finding the metal butter knife I felt confident that we had found the source of the sound I had heard and that we had no other FOD issues. It was surprising the amount of FOD that was found behind the rudder pedals. It may be a good idea to periodically check that area for FOD during routine scheduled maintenance checks.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: An A320 Captain thought he dropped a ruler as his tray table was stowed but a maintenance inspection found other FOD behind the rudder pedal covers; including a metal butter knife; a plastic spoon; and a ball point pen.

Narrative: I thought I had taken out my one foot by one inch metal ruler from my flight bag that I use to cut up the flight release into manageable sections and put it on my tray table with the release on top of it. When I went to review my release my ruler was not under it on my table. When I stowed my tray table I heard a slight 'clank' from behind it as it stowed and thought that maybe my ruler had slid behind my tray table. I could not see anything behind the rudder pedals; it was not in the tray table tracks and the tray table stowed without any problems. As a precaution I had station maintenance come out to check behind the rudder pedal area and the forward E & E to see if by chance it had worked its way back there. After a 40 minute thorough search by two mechanics done multiple times behind the rudder pedal area and E & E the only FOD found was a metal butter knife; ball point pen and a plastic spoon all located out of reach from the cockpit on the floor behind my rudder pedal adjustment cover. We also did a hydraulic power-on rudder pedal movement check while the mechanics checked the area under the floor and under my rudder pedal position adjustment cover verifying that the rudder pedal linkages were not fouled. It is very possible that the 'clank' I heard was the metal butter knife falling to the floor after being trapped behind the tray table as it made the same sound when I dropped it into my side cockpit storage bin to get it out of the way. After a search of the rest of the cockpit (including looking under my seat cover just in case I had put it on the seat and it had slipped to the back of the seat under the cover) I never did find my ruler but it is possible that I it had been lost earlier because when I checked my flight bag the storage area where I kept it was open and unzipped. I also don't believe that the tray table would have stowed OK with a foot long ruler in the tracks. At any rate; after hearing the 'clank' I wanted to be sure that the ruler wasn't where I didn't want it to be. After the thorough search and finding the metal butter knife I felt confident that we had found the source of the sound I had heard and that we had no other FOD issues. It was surprising the amount of FOD that was found behind the rudder pedals. It may be a good idea to periodically check that area for FOD during routine scheduled maintenance checks.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of April 2012 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.