The corrosion inside this fuel tank after just 2 years in Florida was wild

I pulled a access panel on a 172 last month that had been sitting at a small airport near Tampa and the inside looked like it had been underwater for a decade. The previous mechanic told me it was fine, but there was pitting all along the bottom rib and some staining around the drain valve. Has anyone else seen that kind of rapid corrosion in humid climates, or did this plane just get neglected harder than most?

2 comments

2 Comments

max_ramirez4810d ago

Man that's rough, I feel for you... seeing pitting and that kind of damage after just two years is seriously messed up. I've worked on planes down in the Gulf Coast area for a while and the humidity is just brutal on everything, but that sounds like more than just weather. That stain around the drain valve is a red flag too, makes me wonder if it had water sitting in there for a long time or maybe some bad sealant from the factory. You're right to be worried, pitting on the bottom rib can turn into a stress crack fast if it's not caught early. I'd be real careful trusting that mechanic's word if he brushed it off like that.

hill.david10d ago

Saw a similar post about this on a Cessna forum last week and a corrosion guy was saying how the way they treat the metal around the drain holes can make or break the whole plane over time. @max_ramirez48 you're spot on about that stain, that's almost always trapped moisture eating away at the panel from the inside out. Had a buddy who ignored pitting like that on his Comanche and ended up with a dime-sized hole through the bottom skin six months later, it's no joke.