Learned the hard way that torque seal color tells you nothing about who signed off the job

Mila Mitchell · 2026-09-23T01:30:04.774617+00:00

I was doing a walkaround on a King Air 200 last month in Wichita and spotted orange torque seal on a fuel sump drain that was finger loose. I had been trusting those little paint marks for years as proof someone already checked it, but the seal only shows the nut has not moved since it was painted, not that it was ever torqued right or that the paint went on after the check. Found two more loose fittings on that same plane that morning, all of them marked up nice and orange. A quick wrench pull in AMM order on every seal you see would have caught all three, and it only cost me about 15 minutes. Now I carry a paint stick in my pocket and I still pull a sample with a torque wrench on any seal I did not put there myself. How do you all handle torque seal on preflight, do you trust it or pull a few anyway?

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Learned the hard way that torque seal color tells you nothing about who signed off the job | Aircraft Mechanics - HW Forums