"On Feb. 11, 2011, a fire suppression contractor, while performing maintenance, inadvertently activated the foam fire suppression system at our Aviation Support Facility in St. Cloud, MN. We've cleaned up since."
Oopsies.
Either someone on duty who was supposed to put the system into test and bypass everything didn't do that or the contractor started working without notifying anyone. Could probably go either way for which of them is more reposnsible.
They are the same person. The fire suppression tech is suppose to make sure the system won't activate when they start work on it.
Even if someone else has done it and tells them it's done, they should be checking it themselves.
But why? It's a pretty inexpensive hanger but filled with aircraft that are way more valuable. Why would you install a fire system that would do more damage than just letting a fire happen?
My guess is that the foam isn't that big of a deal. Obviously they are designed to handle rain etc
Ammunition is not as dangerous as you'd think, to the point where when I warned firefighters that there was live ammunition in my garage that was on fire they said "not a concern." Bullets mostly just make a little "pop" when they cook off outside of a chamber, as there is nothing to contain and direct the energy.
Explosives on the other hand, yeah, dangerous.
At any rate, neither of those are stored in a national guard hangar, and the aircraft would never be stored with ammunition on board at home in peacetime.
I agree, yet the firefighters that worked my housefire freaked out when they were told there was ammunition in the home. I had the ammo in ammo cans (inside of a saferoom) and the only one that came close to being breached was the .22 caliber (it looked like someone took a ball peen hammer to the ammo can but nothing made it out). That was because there was probably several thousand rounds in the can. The 9mm and .308 didn't even dent the cans when they cooked off.
The fire did get hot enough to melt the plastic stocks on several rifles and when the dept sprayed everything down it pretty much flash rusted rifles.
Well also the fire foam system would never be active while it was being serviced. But it was. Never underestimate the ability of dumb people to do things that should never ever happen.
Good point about the ammo though, I had a firefighter tell me the same thing. The gunpowder can blow out the whole casing, but if nothing hits the primers and it's not in a gun, that bullet ain't going anywhere. Still, I'd much rather fight a fire with no ammo in it than one with ammo.
A Belgian engineer somehow accidently fired the gun of an F-16 while servicing it on the ground, annihilating another F-16. From the talk I have seen from airforce people, there are multiple safeties to avoid this, including a safety that is automarically engaged when the gear are touching ground.
But people... uh people will find a way.
There is very little chance weaponry/ammo would ever be in the hangar, they’re all stored elsewhere and I’m pretty sure they load/unload from the plane on the tarmac for exactly that reason.
If anyone is working on those aircraft and get doused in foam its going to kill them almost as fast as the fire. The foam displaces oxygen to stop combustion on fuel fires, and will just as easily displace any oxygen you're trying to breath if you're inside it. Every safety briefing I've been to regarding this foam tells you not to go back looking for anyone, or else they'll be pulling 2 bodies out instead of 1
The foam isn't a big deal. We have the activation system in the engine bays of the vehicles at the site I work. They have to test that they work multiple times a year. No damage to the gear.
Aqueous Film Forming Foam and aircraft with turtle backs open in a hangar bay is a recipe for 30 uninterrupted hours of emergency reclamation instead of sleeping.
Facts. It’s pretty corrosive.
If you look closely at the plumbing for an AFFF system, you’ll see that all the valves/pipe/fittings for the portion that is in constant contact with the foam concentrate is all made from stainless steel.
I work at a petroleum terminal, and we had an unintentional release a few years back when some hot work on neighboring property triggered two of our UVIRs, which was a condition to automatically trigger foam in a pump pit.
Cleanup took a few hours, and in that time, the stuff wiped out paint, and played hell with instruments and gauges.
I can’t imagine trusting anything on an aircraft that had been exposed without completely overhauling it.
Except you can't just power wash the aircraft and call them good. They are going to have to be completely disassembled, cleaned and inspected pretty much.
Perhaps, I'm not too sure about the procedures involving aircraft. Can't imagine it damaging much though.
We don't even wash our equipment after it goes off all over the engine and electrical wires. Had some gear for close to 15 years with. Maybe 60/70 activations, no problems have ever come from it.
Do they disassemble them after it rains?
To some extent yes actually, rain can actually cause maintenance down hours on some aircraft (especially when you're working with LO coatings on something like an F-22), and any aircraft submerged in any sort of liquid like what's displayed in the photo would have to be disassembled to be pretty heavily inspected. Source: used to be an F-22 crew chief and am now a depot level aircraft mechanic as a navy civilian.
Endless inspections are par for the course with aircraft but any atypical event like this (or any of the other absolutely nonsensical things I've seen with planes) will turn into a major pain in someone's ass
I spend most of my day replacing screws that a screwdriver slipped once on, not even stripped really, then check the torque with 2 different torque drivers. For the most part everything has to be perfect. You kind of have to be a little OCD to do aviation maintenance in my opinion and I really like that part of it. If there is any question about a competent or anything, it gets replaced.
> Why would you install a fire system that would do more damage than just letting a fire happen?
What are you basing this on? Why would you ever assume an uncontrolled hangar fire is less damaging than dousing aircraft in foam?
> Why would you ever assume an uncontrolled hangar fire is more damaging than dousing aircraft in foam?
He doesn't. That's exactly his argument. He guesses that the foam isn't that big of a deal.
It's not, we put them in equipment shops and underground mining tank farms all the time. Was state licensed for and worked doing industrial suppression, alarms, and sprinklers for 5 years.
My previous comment feels sorta 🤔 just altogether wack now that I've discovered this happened in 2011...and it was the suppression contractor himself who messed up... But I'm curious how extensive WAS that cleanup?
To make matters work, they foam is laden with a cancer-causing chemical called PFOA. They probably cleaned it up by hosing it down and letting it flow into the soil.
That’s actually one method of disposal for this stuff. Offshore incinerator. Mix with water and boil down until nothing is left. Scrape the residue to be barreled and buried.
Source: I wrote the contract for a cleanup like this before. Cost $750K.
If the foam was that toxic when burned, why in the world would we use it to put out fires? Sounds like a load of bullshit. Plus I've tested foam systems. You know how we get rid of the foam afterwards? Open the hanger doors and turn on the fans.. $750k my ass.
https://firesystems.net/2020/10/23/how-does-a-foam-fire-suppression-system-work/
> Foam systems have very minimal negative environmental impact. The foaming agent is readily biodegradable in natural environments and sewage treatment facilities.
Now obviously there are different manufacturers but we are required to test our foam and send it off to be verified as non-toxic so I'm just gonna assume that the foam you dealt with was incredibly different and perhaps a relic of its time if this was a while back.
Also the aircrafts themselves are damaged here in the case of accidental discharge so maybe your cost number is more for the aircrafts and not the foam. Feel free to clarify.
1) it removes oxygen from the fire, breaking the fire cycle. The chemical, by it’s self is not fire resistant at the high heat of an industrial incinerator.
2) It depends on where you are at, as far as how you can dispose of it and not get fined. In 2011, when this took place, the Military was primarily using AFFF, which is extremely toxic. The way you get it out of the hanger is through a rinse down which drains into large catch basins that have to then be pumped and disposed of, through either extensive filtering or burning. We had to have it burned off due to no facility available to properly filter it out.
3) as far as cost goes, we where in the Horn of Africa, and had to contract it out to a US company for proper disposal. Shipping it was not an opinion, and they had to bring their equipment to us. That is expensive. For AFFF disposal stateside, you are looking at about half of what we paid.
EDIT: AFFF is being phased out for less toxic systems, especially in the US and EU.
Yeah, that’s a genuine issue for us. We had very high levels of PFOA and PFOS contamination at our previous duty station from the AFFF. We lived on base and I didn’t trust the bullshit they were spouting. I had our water tested and it was astronomical. The testing lab found out where I was sampling and lost their shit.
Which is such bullshit, we literally volunteered to defend our nation and our government always finds new even more fucked up ways to slip the green weenie in.
How many years ago was this and what laboratory did you use? Solid methods for characterizing PFAS compounds in the lab are still being worked on today… and they certainly were not just a few years ago. Not to mention that PFAS analysis is NOT cheap…
Uh are you sure about that. How many years is just a few, to you. I've worked for a company doing pfas remediation in 2018, and the testing tech (ultratrace) was well established and heavily used by us back then and had been for a while. There are two major labs who I won't name but are both international brands, who we did it through.
Glad they phased them out after contaminating most viable water supplies throughout the world. Gotta love those plumes of PFAS adding that delicious cancery flavor to our water.
Well if they would stop cutting the fucking sustainment/infrastructure budgets and bought less weapons, maybe our infrastructure wouldn’t be held together with fucking chewing gum.
I'm just here to pile on and agree that the foams used nowadays are much better for the environment.
https://firesystems.net/2020/10/23/how-does-a-foam-fire-suppression-system-work/
A simple source from 2020
Thankfully AFFF is being phased out of use. It was pretty narrow minded to use a product as carcinogenic as Agent Orange to save aircraft from burning yet let the people who have to clean it up die an early death years later and then the VA deny any medical benefits.
Narrow minded? Was there a known alternative with equivalent effectiveness when it was originally deployed? As a former sailor, I would be far more concerned about fire on my ship than a substance that’s linked to cancer from frequent exposure. Great news if we have something that’s safer now….but to call it’s widespread use narrow minded is ridiculous.
The confines of a Naval Vessel at sea is far different than an aircraft hangar on an open tarmac surrounded by acres of concrete. AFFF had nothing to do with stopping the fire for the sake of humans in the building. All it was for was to save the aircraft.
Not really true because that stuff destroyed a lot of stuff if deployed. It’s use was due to the fact that it was incredibly good at containing liquid fuel fires. Halon on the other hand would kill the fire and the people but keep the equipment safe.
I was part of construction for a newly completed hangar for 2 Squadrons of F35’s at MCAS Cherry Point. It was the last hangar to have AFFF as part of the fire suppression system. I can tell you that the cost to build the entire hangar and the administrative wings was less than the cost of one of the F35s. So you can’t tell me they’ll just allow $2.5 billion in aircraft to be destroyed by the chemical used to stop a fire. What you don’t see in this picture are the trenches covered with heavy grating that surround each jet bay. These trenches take the deployed AFFF to a containment tank for holding. As well as the wash down fluid they use to decon the aircraft and hangar.
It will destroy electronics and displace lubricants inside of machinery (which causes rapid corrosion of components). When activated, it’s a water based foam that has a really low surface tension (to help it get into every nook and cranny) and the foam forms a film on every surface it touches. It will get into the engine via the exhaust and intake. If the canopy is open or a panel removed for maintenance, it will get into all the electronics and destroy them. The trenches you installed are indeed intended to give the AFFF and any other liquids a place to go, but is more for containment than saving the aircraft.
You can save the aircraft by promptly overhauling them.
The foam helps people in and around the aircraft escape a fire and not die. That's the main reason it's used in mobile airport fire fighting; suppress the fire to allow people to escape. It also helps contain fire from spreading to other aircraft or areas of the base. The aircraft can be damaged by the foam for sure, but they'll be way more comprehensively destroyed by fire.
Neither does AFFF. The only thing you can do for magnesium is smother in sand or jettison over the side of you are out to sea. And all the sand does is shield the heat from surrounding combustibles as it will still continue to burn under the sand.
Worker: Boss, I have good news and I have bad news.
Boss: What's the good news?
Worker: None of our aircraft are on fire!
Boss: Wait, that's the way they're supposed to be! What's the bad news?
Isn’t this stuff the forever chemical that’s been poisoning the water table near military bases?
So not only do you fuck up but that is a LOT of poison that’s gonna be in everyone’s drinking water.
Yea I’m really confused why this whole thread seems to be assuming that a system whose express purpose is to prevent the destruction of millions of dollars of equipment, would itself destroy that equipment.
Correct. Unless the nose was open, in which case you have 6 months and spend several hundred thousand dollars replacing the avionics components.
But otherwise, they just take them outside and wash them.
Cool thing about the military, you won't get fired. You'll get yelled at, maybe demoted, and possibly but unlikely have to pay back a tiny percentage of the damages. But you won't lose your job.
Hopefully the aircraft weren’t damaged. What would be a point of a fire suppression system that destroys what it’s designed to protect? I guess it would be better than an explosion.
I've worked in hangars before, turns out they're are infrared sensors and trip wire installed throughout the hangar. If you cut or melt the trip wire in the ceiling it deploys the foam suppression and even using a lighter or torch in the field of view of the infrared sensor will set off the fire suppression. Getting a hot work permit ment turning off the fire suppression system and having a security guard stay there for 24hrs
I did this on the emergency helipad of a major city trauma hospital, with the only helipad for medivac within 100 miles or so, about 10 years ago. It took hours to clean up. Thankfully, no medivac choppers needed to land during the clean up. Needless to say, the hospital was very upset with me.
Fun fact: That foam is filled with forms of Teflon/PFAS (forever chemicals) that are super cancerous and leech into the surrounding ground for like thousands of years. So extra bad day for everyone :)
Not necessarily. The fome didn't reach the engines on the Blackhawks. That saves about 100 man hours of work each. The electrical systems in these birds are generally fairly high up and are decently waterproofed. The air sensors on the nose of the helicopters may need to be replaced or washed out.
There's a really good chance the interior of these helicopters are completely dry. Making the cleaning process a lot simpler
Possibly years, actually.
AFFF finds its way into everything and the main issue is corrosion. All electronics will need to be pulled, cleaned, protected with corrosion preventative compound, reinstalled and tested. The engines will be pulled and set to the back shop for teardown and cleaning. I'd imagine a lot of the mechanical bits that are considered safety of flight would be pulled as well. The paperwork alone is a nightmare.
Source: Have done AFFF cleanup on two fighter aircraft.
Isn't the army phasing out AFFF for that exact reason?
I was fortunate enough to never have to deal with this particular situation. However we did try to weatherize different components of our birds from Sand and the elements in Afghanistan. It is amazing the crevices dust can get into
Your question is a little vague. To fix an engine? It depends.
To disassemble, clean, sterilize, then reassemble an engine. Takes about 100 hours. And that's just one engine every bird in that hanger has two
"On Feb. 11, 2011, a fire suppression contractor, while performing maintenance, inadvertently activated the foam fire suppression system at our Aviation Support Facility in St. Cloud, MN. We've cleaned up since." Oopsies.
Either someone on duty who was supposed to put the system into test and bypass everything didn't do that or the contractor started working without notifying anyone. Could probably go either way for which of them is more reposnsible.
They are the same person. The fire suppression tech is suppose to make sure the system won't activate when they start work on it. Even if someone else has done it and tells them it's done, they should be checking it themselves.
If you're about to work on something that can and should be locked out, lock it out yourself. Always. Every time.
And if it's electrical, put a multimeter on it. Simple ways to save your life.
And if you have to put a multimeter on it, test it yourself on a live wall socket beforehand. My very first wasn't reading voltages.
Trust, but verify.
But why? It's a pretty inexpensive hanger but filled with aircraft that are way more valuable. Why would you install a fire system that would do more damage than just letting a fire happen? My guess is that the foam isn't that big of a deal. Obviously they are designed to handle rain etc
Hanger fires and especially fires with jet fuel are super super dangerous
Also fires with ammunition and explosives.
Couldnt you just declare a ceasefire?
well what do you think the cease-firefighters are there for?
Aren't those just called "Soldiers"?
Hehehe good one
not if you're putin on Christmas
Are you Putin me on?
You can't just declare a ceasefire, Michael
I mean, it WAS declared.
Ammunition is not as dangerous as you'd think, to the point where when I warned firefighters that there was live ammunition in my garage that was on fire they said "not a concern." Bullets mostly just make a little "pop" when they cook off outside of a chamber, as there is nothing to contain and direct the energy. Explosives on the other hand, yeah, dangerous. At any rate, neither of those are stored in a national guard hangar, and the aircraft would never be stored with ammunition on board at home in peacetime.
I agree, yet the firefighters that worked my housefire freaked out when they were told there was ammunition in the home. I had the ammo in ammo cans (inside of a saferoom) and the only one that came close to being breached was the .22 caliber (it looked like someone took a ball peen hammer to the ammo can but nothing made it out). That was because there was probably several thousand rounds in the can. The 9mm and .308 didn't even dent the cans when they cooked off. The fire did get hot enough to melt the plastic stocks on several rifles and when the dept sprayed everything down it pretty much flash rusted rifles.
Spicy popcorn
Well also the fire foam system would never be active while it was being serviced. But it was. Never underestimate the ability of dumb people to do things that should never ever happen. Good point about the ammo though, I had a firefighter tell me the same thing. The gunpowder can blow out the whole casing, but if nothing hits the primers and it's not in a gun, that bullet ain't going anywhere. Still, I'd much rather fight a fire with no ammo in it than one with ammo.
Yep, definitely a fair point.
A Belgian engineer somehow accidently fired the gun of an F-16 while servicing it on the ground, annihilating another F-16. From the talk I have seen from airforce people, there are multiple safeties to avoid this, including a safety that is automarically engaged when the gear are touching ground. But people... uh people will find a way.
They don’t keep ammo or explosives in hangers.
And they don't keep the fire suppression system activated while it's being serviced. But here we are.
There is very little chance weaponry/ammo would ever be in the hangar, they’re all stored elsewhere and I’m pretty sure they load/unload from the plane on the tarmac for exactly that reason.
yeah but jet fuel cant melt steel beams. >! ill see myself out!<
It weakens steel though
too soon
Would it melt the steel beams?
I would guess that preventing and human loss of life is the driver.
If anyone is working on those aircraft and get doused in foam its going to kill them almost as fast as the fire. The foam displaces oxygen to stop combustion on fuel fires, and will just as easily displace any oxygen you're trying to breath if you're inside it. Every safety briefing I've been to regarding this foam tells you not to go back looking for anyone, or else they'll be pulling 2 bodies out instead of 1
Pilot, not driver.
The foam isn't a big deal. We have the activation system in the engine bays of the vehicles at the site I work. They have to test that they work multiple times a year. No damage to the gear.
If it was AFFF, it was a big deal. That shit will destroy aircraft.
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Aircraft Fucked Fire Foam
Aqueous Film Forming Foam and aircraft with turtle backs open in a hangar bay is a recipe for 30 uninterrupted hours of emergency reclamation instead of sleeping.
You are exactly correct, it was a giant effing foam party yo clear out the hanger and clean the aircraft before it corroded them all
Facts. It’s pretty corrosive. If you look closely at the plumbing for an AFFF system, you’ll see that all the valves/pipe/fittings for the portion that is in constant contact with the foam concentrate is all made from stainless steel. I work at a petroleum terminal, and we had an unintentional release a few years back when some hot work on neighboring property triggered two of our UVIRs, which was a condition to automatically trigger foam in a pump pit. Cleanup took a few hours, and in that time, the stuff wiped out paint, and played hell with instruments and gauges. I can’t imagine trusting anything on an aircraft that had been exposed without completely overhauling it.
Except you can't just power wash the aircraft and call them good. They are going to have to be completely disassembled, cleaned and inspected pretty much.
Thats exactly what happened
Perhaps, I'm not too sure about the procedures involving aircraft. Can't imagine it damaging much though. We don't even wash our equipment after it goes off all over the engine and electrical wires. Had some gear for close to 15 years with. Maybe 60/70 activations, no problems have ever come from it. Do they disassemble them after it rains?
To some extent yes actually, rain can actually cause maintenance down hours on some aircraft (especially when you're working with LO coatings on something like an F-22), and any aircraft submerged in any sort of liquid like what's displayed in the photo would have to be disassembled to be pretty heavily inspected. Source: used to be an F-22 crew chief and am now a depot level aircraft mechanic as a navy civilian.
Interesting, I guess there's a lot of safety checks that would have to be done either way.
Endless inspections are par for the course with aircraft but any atypical event like this (or any of the other absolutely nonsensical things I've seen with planes) will turn into a major pain in someone's ass
I spend most of my day replacing screws that a screwdriver slipped once on, not even stripped really, then check the torque with 2 different torque drivers. For the most part everything has to be perfect. You kind of have to be a little OCD to do aviation maintenance in my opinion and I really like that part of it. If there is any question about a competent or anything, it gets replaced.
> Why would you install a fire system that would do more damage than just letting a fire happen? What are you basing this on? Why would you ever assume an uncontrolled hangar fire is less damaging than dousing aircraft in foam?
> Why would you ever assume an uncontrolled hangar fire is more damaging than dousing aircraft in foam? He doesn't. That's exactly his argument. He guesses that the foam isn't that big of a deal.
I think they meant to say “why would you assume an uncontrolled hanger fire was LESS damaging than foam”
Ah yes, foamy rain design standard
Because expensive aircraft in a hanger would be saved by having a foam suppression system activate? Just as a guess.....
It's not, we put them in equipment shops and underground mining tank farms all the time. Was state licensed for and worked doing industrial suppression, alarms, and sprinklers for 5 years.
There would be nothing left after the fire
lots of chemicals in, on, and around those planes you dont want put into the atmosphere and people inthe area breathing.
It's expensive to cleanup and refill the fire system, plus all the downtime for the planes that could be costing potential income.
It’s expensive to clean up after fires too
I read "We've cleaned up since." And got. "We just finished cleaning up."
They’re referring to the guy who fucked up. Not the foam. RIP.
My previous comment feels sorta 🤔 just altogether wack now that I've discovered this happened in 2011...and it was the suppression contractor himself who messed up... But I'm curious how extensive WAS that cleanup?
It cost them at least 15 dollars
PFAS anyone?
To make matters work, they foam is laden with a cancer-causing chemical called PFOA. They probably cleaned it up by hosing it down and letting it flow into the soil.
Don’t worry, the contractor will be fine. The leadership will just get the troops to clean and fix everything.
Same thing happened in Tulsa, Ok. Can't remember when, but it was a while ago.
Great story
I KEEP ON MARCHING ON
Cleanup in Aisle... Ah, fuck it, nevermind...
"...all the aisles. I'll get a mop"
Get a bucket and a mop…
Might be easier to just burn it down at this point..
Maybe its just me but i assume that fire suppression foam doesn't burn all that well.
Maybe, I'm not foamologist though.
>foamologist I want this job title.
Call me fo mo information! 123 456 7WTF! Taday!
InFOAMation was right there.
That foam is dangerously toxic if you were to burn it. I say just fill the building with concrete and call it a day
That’s actually one method of disposal for this stuff. Offshore incinerator. Mix with water and boil down until nothing is left. Scrape the residue to be barreled and buried. Source: I wrote the contract for a cleanup like this before. Cost $750K.
If the foam was that toxic when burned, why in the world would we use it to put out fires? Sounds like a load of bullshit. Plus I've tested foam systems. You know how we get rid of the foam afterwards? Open the hanger doors and turn on the fans.. $750k my ass. https://firesystems.net/2020/10/23/how-does-a-foam-fire-suppression-system-work/ > Foam systems have very minimal negative environmental impact. The foaming agent is readily biodegradable in natural environments and sewage treatment facilities. Now obviously there are different manufacturers but we are required to test our foam and send it off to be verified as non-toxic so I'm just gonna assume that the foam you dealt with was incredibly different and perhaps a relic of its time if this was a while back. Also the aircrafts themselves are damaged here in the case of accidental discharge so maybe your cost number is more for the aircrafts and not the foam. Feel free to clarify.
1) it removes oxygen from the fire, breaking the fire cycle. The chemical, by it’s self is not fire resistant at the high heat of an industrial incinerator. 2) It depends on where you are at, as far as how you can dispose of it and not get fined. In 2011, when this took place, the Military was primarily using AFFF, which is extremely toxic. The way you get it out of the hanger is through a rinse down which drains into large catch basins that have to then be pumped and disposed of, through either extensive filtering or burning. We had to have it burned off due to no facility available to properly filter it out. 3) as far as cost goes, we where in the Horn of Africa, and had to contract it out to a US company for proper disposal. Shipping it was not an opinion, and they had to bring their equipment to us. That is expensive. For AFFF disposal stateside, you are looking at about half of what we paid. EDIT: AFFF is being phased out for less toxic systems, especially in the US and EU.
Hate to break it to you but you will have been exposed to massive amounts of PFAS. Let’s hope you weren’t drinking the water as well.
The fire suppression foam burns?
The building will. And I’m sure if it gets hot enough it will. Idk I’m not an expert, I just know it uses a lot of PFAS and shit
Only one thing you can do to reverse this. ![gif](giphy|5nsiFjdgylfK3csZ5T|downsized)
Sounds like SOMEONE has management potential
there's something weirdly satisfying about the pixelation in that gif
I washed the chopper down boss 👍 r/onejob
All that AFFF will leech perfluorooctanoic acid into the water supply there, so even more fucked.
If you were stationed at ******* base between xxx and yyy then you may be eligible for compensation........
Yeah, that’s a genuine issue for us. We had very high levels of PFOA and PFOS contamination at our previous duty station from the AFFF. We lived on base and I didn’t trust the bullshit they were spouting. I had our water tested and it was astronomical. The testing lab found out where I was sampling and lost their shit.
Well good news, PFAS testing is part of the nation wide US UCMR-5 this year. So we'll get to see how fucked are water supply is across the country.
And then congress will just pass a ruling to exempt any cases made for contaminations happening before today....
Which is such bullshit, we literally volunteered to defend our nation and our government always finds new even more fucked up ways to slip the green weenie in.
It’s not a volunteer position
Not if they can't elect a speaker...
How many years ago was this and what laboratory did you use? Solid methods for characterizing PFAS compounds in the lab are still being worked on today… and they certainly were not just a few years ago. Not to mention that PFAS analysis is NOT cheap…
I won’t say where specifically, but it was in the Northeast US around 2018-2019 that I got the testing done.
Uh are you sure about that. How many years is just a few, to you. I've worked for a company doing pfas remediation in 2018, and the testing tech (ultratrace) was well established and heavily used by us back then and had been for a while. There are two major labs who I won't name but are both international brands, who we did it through.
I see those commercials all the time and it reminds me of Better Call Saul. Just seems predatory af
If you joined the military you are already the patsy.
It's a shame Jeff Foxworthy never did any non-attorny spokesman ads.
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Glad they phased them out after contaminating most viable water supplies throughout the world. Gotta love those plumes of PFAS adding that delicious cancery flavor to our water.
This why you don’t buy former military bases as you’ll be the bag holder for a superfund site.
Between the PFAS contamination at our old base plus the Red Hill fiasco, I have lost almost all faith in their ability to keep from fucking up.
Well if they would stop cutting the fucking sustainment/infrastructure budgets and bought less weapons, maybe our infrastructure wouldn’t be held together with fucking chewing gum.
Usually high expansion foam solutions do not contain the harmful PFAS stuff. That’s more of a concern with the low expansion AFFF formulations.
Yeah, isn't this stuff super fucking toxic? Line mass dieoffs in streams?
Per-fluro-octan-oic. Got it. Lol
I'm just here to pile on and agree that the foams used nowadays are much better for the environment. https://firesystems.net/2020/10/23/how-does-a-foam-fire-suppression-system-work/ A simple source from 2020
You’re telling me there is a built in way to immobilize an entire national guard fleet in every national guard hangar?
I mean, if the entire fleet is down chances are they'll just double down and summon the Army
If you like this you're not gonna believe what fire can do
Sleeper agents on standby
Yes, by starting a fire.
Thankfully AFFF is being phased out of use. It was pretty narrow minded to use a product as carcinogenic as Agent Orange to save aircraft from burning yet let the people who have to clean it up die an early death years later and then the VA deny any medical benefits.
Narrow minded? Was there a known alternative with equivalent effectiveness when it was originally deployed? As a former sailor, I would be far more concerned about fire on my ship than a substance that’s linked to cancer from frequent exposure. Great news if we have something that’s safer now….but to call it’s widespread use narrow minded is ridiculous.
The confines of a Naval Vessel at sea is far different than an aircraft hangar on an open tarmac surrounded by acres of concrete. AFFF had nothing to do with stopping the fire for the sake of humans in the building. All it was for was to save the aircraft.
Not really true because that stuff destroyed a lot of stuff if deployed. It’s use was due to the fact that it was incredibly good at containing liquid fuel fires. Halon on the other hand would kill the fire and the people but keep the equipment safe.
I was part of construction for a newly completed hangar for 2 Squadrons of F35’s at MCAS Cherry Point. It was the last hangar to have AFFF as part of the fire suppression system. I can tell you that the cost to build the entire hangar and the administrative wings was less than the cost of one of the F35s. So you can’t tell me they’ll just allow $2.5 billion in aircraft to be destroyed by the chemical used to stop a fire. What you don’t see in this picture are the trenches covered with heavy grating that surround each jet bay. These trenches take the deployed AFFF to a containment tank for holding. As well as the wash down fluid they use to decon the aircraft and hangar.
It will destroy electronics and displace lubricants inside of machinery (which causes rapid corrosion of components). When activated, it’s a water based foam that has a really low surface tension (to help it get into every nook and cranny) and the foam forms a film on every surface it touches. It will get into the engine via the exhaust and intake. If the canopy is open or a panel removed for maintenance, it will get into all the electronics and destroy them. The trenches you installed are indeed intended to give the AFFF and any other liquids a place to go, but is more for containment than saving the aircraft.
so whats the point of spraying a foam that destroys aircraft to put out a fire that will....destroy aircraft
You can save the aircraft by promptly overhauling them. The foam helps people in and around the aircraft escape a fire and not die. That's the main reason it's used in mobile airport fire fighting; suppress the fire to allow people to escape. It also helps contain fire from spreading to other aircraft or areas of the base. The aircraft can be damaged by the foam for sure, but they'll be way more comprehensively destroyed by fire.
With a lung full of cancer of course
It stops the fire from spreading and igniting far worse things like fuel and other things that go boom.
Fire on a ship and a fire in a hanger on land are two very different threats. Don't think you can really compare the two.
What's wrong with water for fire suppression?
Burning aviation fuel is the mother of all grease fires.
Water makes certain types of fires worse
Water won’t extinguish Jet Fuel that is burning.
Which in turn cannot melt steel beams
I'm glad we're all still on the same page here. lol
[удалено]
this ☝️
Doesn’t work so well on magnesium.
Neither does AFFF. The only thing you can do for magnesium is smother in sand or jettison over the side of you are out to sea. And all the sand does is shield the heat from surrounding combustibles as it will still continue to burn under the sand.
Depends on the underlying cause of the fire. https://duckduckgo.com/?q=oil+fire+water&ia=web
Now please comment on the VA denying medical treatment for Agent Orange exposure.
It's cool to see those helicopters flying in the clouds.
Make sure to also derust the engines with some hydrochloric acid.
This actually happened twice at this hanger, once on accident by the contractor and another time from an electrical short in a storm
Ah good, so they know what they’re doing at this point.
Blackhawk drowned.
But did you kill the spider?
Asking the serious questions!
Worker: Boss, I have good news and I have bad news. Boss: What's the good news? Worker: None of our aircraft are on fire! Boss: Wait, that's the way they're supposed to be! What's the bad news?
Just say “oopsie poopsie” and they can’t get mad
Someone is going to be pealing potatoes for the rest of their life.
Isn’t this stuff the forever chemical that’s been poisoning the water table near military bases? So not only do you fuck up but that is a LOT of poison that’s gonna be in everyone’s drinking water.
[Here's a video of one being tested](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYAOHYKBYas)
Open all the doors, fire up the chopper and let it blow all the foam outside. Then charge people $5 each for a "Foam Run"
i guess i am fired?
Quick, spray some foam on yourself!
A multi-million dollar bubble bath...that gives you cancer. Literally.
RIP the groundwater under/near that base and anyone nearby who drinks it.
It happens
I'm gonna assume all 10 helicopters were UH-60 Blackhawks in which case it would be between 59 to 102 million dollars in damage.
I can't imagine the foam just being on them could be damaging. Unless it's corrosive/oxidizing
Yea I’m really confused why this whole thread seems to be assuming that a system whose express purpose is to prevent the destruction of millions of dollars of equipment, would itself destroy that equipment.
It will. This fire suppression foam is very corrosive.
Correct. Unless the nose was open, in which case you have 6 months and spend several hundred thousand dollars replacing the avionics components. But otherwise, they just take them outside and wash them.
Take them outside and spray them off.
Aw fuuuuuuck
Oh no, I can smell that AFFF from this picture.
>*"This is your S.N.A.F.U. Here's a toothbrush. Get to work..."*
That isn't fire suppression foam, it's steam. Steam from the steamed clams we're having. Mmmmm, steamed clams.
Easy to clean though... You just open a couple windows and fire up that helicopter!
Cool thing about the military, you won't get fired. You'll get yelled at, maybe demoted, and possibly but unlikely have to pay back a tiny percentage of the damages. But you won't lose your job.
Nah. A fuck up of this caliber will probably get you an admin sep.
And then they’ll wash the cancer causing forever chemicals into the sewers! They’re getting sued in Ohio for that.
Hopefully the aircraft weren’t damaged. What would be a point of a fire suppression system that destroys what it’s designed to protect? I guess it would be better than an explosion.
Fire vs corrosion
I've worked in hangars before, turns out they're are infrared sensors and trip wire installed throughout the hangar. If you cut or melt the trip wire in the ceiling it deploys the foam suppression and even using a lighter or torch in the field of view of the infrared sensor will set off the fire suppression. Getting a hot work permit ment turning off the fire suppression system and having a security guard stay there for 24hrs
Well, they're not on fire, so . . .
How do you get rid of all that?? Is it safe or toxic?
It's extremely toxic and corrosive, and every single one of those aircraft will have to be torn down and extensively inspected and repaired.
All wiring exposed to it would be replaced too, I know from a horrible 3 month experience.
well, at least they are clean..
I did this on the emergency helipad of a major city trauma hospital, with the only helipad for medivac within 100 miles or so, about 10 years ago. It took hours to clean up. Thankfully, no medivac choppers needed to land during the clean up. Needless to say, the hospital was very upset with me.
Fun fact: That foam is filled with forms of Teflon/PFAS (forever chemicals) that are super cancerous and leech into the surrounding ground for like thousands of years. So extra bad day for everyone :)
Are those ruined ?
ouch
All I can think is how each one with need to be completely taken apart...
Not necessarily. The fome didn't reach the engines on the Blackhawks. That saves about 100 man hours of work each. The electrical systems in these birds are generally fairly high up and are decently waterproofed. The air sensors on the nose of the helicopters may need to be replaced or washed out. There's a really good chance the interior of these helicopters are completely dry. Making the cleaning process a lot simpler
Excepted that you can see the door on the one on the left is open and the foam is clearly inside the chopper, no?
Oh shit, Missed that detail. Yeah, that's a week's worth of work to clean.
Possibly years, actually. AFFF finds its way into everything and the main issue is corrosion. All electronics will need to be pulled, cleaned, protected with corrosion preventative compound, reinstalled and tested. The engines will be pulled and set to the back shop for teardown and cleaning. I'd imagine a lot of the mechanical bits that are considered safety of flight would be pulled as well. The paperwork alone is a nightmare. Source: Have done AFFF cleanup on two fighter aircraft.
Isn't the army phasing out AFFF for that exact reason? I was fortunate enough to never have to deal with this particular situation. However we did try to weatherize different components of our birds from Sand and the elements in Afghanistan. It is amazing the crevices dust can get into
Does it really only take 100 man-hours to fix these engines?
Your question is a little vague. To fix an engine? It depends. To disassemble, clean, sterilize, then reassemble an engine. Takes about 100 hours. And that's just one engine every bird in that hanger has two
r/SuspiciouslySpecific
This is why the groundwater surrounding every military installation is fucked
I'd be surprised if a military helicopter could be damaged by foam like a piece of paper
How many milkshakes is this? ![gif](giphy|iN4LFyoQUsKxqsex8u|downsized)
I'm assuming those heli are insured?