After publishing the articles about Eglin Air Force Base, Charleston AFB and Portland ANGB with images showing several hangars filled with foam after fire suppression systems accidentally went off at various U.S. bases, a reader of my blog sent me the following photographs.
Thet show the hangar floor and eight helicopters covered with 7 feet of foam at the Army Aviation Support Facility (AASF #2) at the St. Cloud airport. Barely visible (hence “stealthy”…) below the foam are UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters most probably belonging to the local based C Company, 2nd General Support Aviation Battalion, 211th Aviation Regiment (Air Ambulance), a Minnesota Army National Guard aeromedical evacuation company.
Although the following images prove that the problem is not only with the hangars at USAF bases, once again it looks a bit weird how frequent this kind of incident is within the U.S. armed forces.
Noteworthy, the doors of the helicopters are open: maybe it’s better to keep them closed, in order to prevent the foam from damaging the aircraft instruments.
They were taken when the 457th FS AFRC (Air Force Reserve Command), from NAS Forth Worth JRB, Texas, was on a TDY (Temporary Deployment) to Portland ANGB, Oregon, in August of 2008 for DACT (Dissimilar Air Combat Training) with the local based 123rd FS of the OR ANG. It was their last day there, they were all packed up and all of a sudden the foam suppression system for the hangar they were operating out of went off.
“Spare parts, computers, and other materials got covered. Our Vipers were out on the flightline. It was a mess, but allowed for us to get a good game of flag football in while the fire folks cleaned it up” the 457th FS’s airman says.
Image courtesy of 457th FS member
It looks like this kind of incident is rather frequent, therefore, what about an in-depth check of all the fire suppression systems before a new “foam party” takes place in one of those hangars sheltering some costly stealth planes?
First of all, a visitor recounted that something like that 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.
Then, a pilot sent me the following picture taken in 2011 at Charleston AFB, South Carolina, when a fire suppression system went off inside a huge C-17 hangar.
Obviously, the size of both the hangar and the C-17 is such, that the U.S. airlifter was far from being submerged by foam.
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
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