The day a bird's nest caused a full avionics fault on a Citation in Phoenix

Got called out to a Citation at Sky Harbor last Tuesday for a weird nav system fault that kept resetting. Spent 3 hours checking connectors and software before I found a pack of twigs and dried grass from a bird nest jammed behind the main avionics rack, shorting a data bus. The captain just laughed and said 'guess they wanted a free ride.' Anyone else had a random animal cause a major fault like that?

2 comments

2 Comments

park.iris11d ago

My buddy found a snake in a King Air's static port.

brown.reese11d ago

A snake in a static port sounds like a small thing, not a major fault.