Grace stepped forward, trembling, and asked for a magnifying glass. One engineer handed it to her with a mocking smile.
She ignored him.
She held the fuel injector up to the light and studied it carefully.
Then she looked at Richard.
“Sir,” she said quietly, “there are scratches inside. Very tiny. But enough to distort the fuel spray.”
The chief engineer snatched the injector from her hand and looked for himself.
The smirk vanished from his face.
His skin went pale.
“Oh my God,” he whispered. “She’s right.”
One by one, the others rushed over.
All of them found the same thing.
Richard’s voice cut across the room.
“Check every injector from every failed engine. Now.”
For three hours the hangar erupted into frantic motion.
Every damaged engine had the same problem.
All the injectors were scratched inside.
The chief engineer looked ready to collapse.
“We were looking at the big systems,” he said hoarsely. “The turbines, the chambers, the electronics… We never thought to inspect the injector interiors with magnification.”
Richard turned slowly toward Grace.
“What causes scratches like these?”
She answered without hesitation.
“Dirty fuel. If contaminated fuel carries tiny particles of metal or grit, they scrape the injector walls little by little. It happens slowly over months. Eventually the spray pattern changes, combustion goes wrong, and the engine starts knocking.”
The chief engineer’s face changed.