I was in the Radar/Fire Control shop, so I only witnessed/heard this second hand.
It seems we had a radio (the Comm shop handled them) that wouldn't work in an aircraft. They would install it, test it, and have to swap it out for another. They'd send it back to MAG for repair and into the system again. The guys in MAG couldn't find anything wrong with it. After several tries, one of the comm shop guys remembered the serial number of the radio and painted one side of it red, so he would recognize it and know better than to try to install it.
It went on for weeks, sending it back to MAG and getting it right back with failure code A799-"No problem found." The guys on the line started calling it the Red Death.
Finally, one of the techs took it out to a plane, placed it on the wing to stage it for installation, and "accidentally" knocked it off onto the concrete tarmac. The wing of an F4 Phantom is about five feet off of the deck.
Apparently, they never saw it again after that.
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