Foam party! Hangar fire suppression system submerges F-15, F-16 and A-10 in foam at Eglin Air Force Base

May 14, 2012 Military Aviation
David Cenciotti

According to “youmustvotenato”, the user who posted it to Reddit, the following picture was taken after the fire suppression system base went off because of a spark from a welder set.

Clearly visible in the image an F-15 belonging to the 85th TES (Test and Evaluation Squadron), an F-16 of the 40 FLTS (Flight Test Squadron), and an A-10 (most probably belonging too to the 46th Test Wing): based on the the tail codes, the hangar must have been one used by the 46th TW at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida.

Image credit: via youmustvotenato / Reddit

The foam generators suspended from the ceiling released suppressant similar to soap that submerged the planes in the hangar. It takes two minutes to fill a 90,000 square-foot hangar with more than three feet of  two percent high-expansion biodegradable foam.

Here’s a video showing how fire suppression systems work.

Thanks to @Menzo2003 for the heads-up

About David Cenciotti
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David Cenciotti is a journalist based in Rome, Italy. He is the Founder and Editor of “The Aviationist”, one of the world’s most famous and read military aviation blogs. Since 1996, he has written for major worldwide magazines, including Air Forces Monthly, Combat Aircraft, and many others, covering aviation, defense, war, industry, intelligence, crime and cyberwar. He has reported from the U.S., Europe, Australia and Syria, and flown several combat planes with different air forces. He is a former 2nd Lt. of the Italian Air Force, a private pilot and a graduate in Computer Engineering. He has written five books and contributed to many more ones.

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7 Comments

  2. Something like this happened with a C-135 VIP transport at Hickam AFB many years ago. They put it into the fuel cell hangar, and left the cockpit windows open. It rained that night, the roof leaked, and the fire suppression system went off. They found the cockpit filled with halon.

    • Thank you.
      Quite surprisingly, this kind of incidents are more frequent than one might expect: I’ve just received a picture of a C-17 surrounded (not submerged because of the size) by foam at Charleston AFB. Maybe I’ll upload it later today.

  5. We had same kind of accident at our company about 2 years ago.. The foam that we use is not good for aircraft (it makes corrosion to the fuselage i think). Luckily we towed the aircraft away before it was covered fully…

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