Root seal failure on a feedwater heater, caught it by accident

Last Tuesday we were doing a routine inspection on a feedwater heater at a paper mill outside of Savannah. I noticed a small drip under the root pass that wasn't in the original weld report. Turns out the weld had a lack of fusion that ran about 3 inches, probably from a bad preheat. We ground it out and re-welded with a fresh bead, but that drip saved us from a full blowout during startup. Has anyone else found a hidden defect just by looking at a stain or drip that seemed too minor to matter?

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