The Qantas Airbus A380 flew for 294 hours with tools in the engine

A Qantas Airbus A380 flew for hundreds of hours before it was discovered that tools had been left in one of its engines.

The incident came to light in an Australian Transport Safety Bureau investigation report on Thursday.

It said that during a scheduled maintenance check in Los Angeles on Jan. 1, a four-foot nylon tool was discovered wedged in the engine.

The California city is one of four destinations served by the Australian airline’s A380 jets.

The ATSB investigation found the tool had been in one of the aircraft’s four engines since a previous maintenance check on December 6 last year.

It added that the superjumbo jet had flown 34 cycles, or 294 hours, with the nylon tooling in the engine.