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Spirit's DTW hangar Foam Fiasco

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Earlier today, Spirit airlines kicked off its 4th of July with a foam celebration. The unfortunate festivities started when the fire suppression system was inadvertently set off at the airlines maintenance hangar at Detroit metro airport. With the hangar doors being open, the foam also flowed onto the hangars ramp. The system was most likely set off by the lightning storm that passed over Metro airport around 5PM local time. (www.youtube.com) More...

Mike T
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GreggB57
Gregg Bender 10
Well, that's one way to clean the outside your aircraft. Now, if they could just clean the interiors...
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GraemeSmith
GraemeSmith 3
Seen that happen on the cargo deck of a USN Combat Littoral ship. Messy....
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charlie02vy
Charlie Roberts 3
I have seen this happen in the hangars of a large MRO in Central NC, a few times....
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MoominMama
Janice Watkins 2
Why didn't they install a lightning rod on the hanger? Would have attracted the lightning and grounded it.
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FlyingSeagull
Chris Browne 1
Building regs need to be tightened to include lightning protection.
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macclad1
macclad1 -2
Spirit Airlines - so named owing to the metaphysical state to which you will transition prematurely after experiencing their antigen-rich cabins.
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bbabis
bbabis -6
These systems seem to cause much more problems than they ever prevent. A simple auto-call to the responding authority would quickly determine if equipment was needed or not.
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TimDyck
Tim Dyck 11
Like any fire suppression system I would rather have an accidental discharge to clean up then a delay when there is a real fire. Jet fuel, hydraulic fluid…etc are hard to extinguish once the fire starts to grow so you need to catch it early.
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mtrainer
Mike T 17
I don't think you really understand how these systems work. It doesn't detect a fire and send something to the fire dept. It detects a fire and sets the foam off. Most systems (like the hangar I work in) have a timer where you can hold a button and abort the discharge if it was something accidental. In this case it really doesn't matter since it was most likely lightning shorting out the system. Saying that the fire department should have been able to stop it is like me calling the electricity company and telling them they shouldn't have shorted out my computer when lightning stuck my house.
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bbabis
bbabis -6
I know exactly how the system works, Mike. I’m saying that the foam should not be auto triggered with the sensor activation even with a delay. It should just send the alarm and a human would activate the foam if necessary. That way a lightning strike or whatever else would simply trigger the alarm and via video feed or human on site the foam would be activated if needed. Unnecessary foaming of multi-million dollar aircraft would be prevented or at least greatly reduced.
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mtrainer
Mike T 9
I really don't think you do. The lightning didn't hit a sensor. It hit the part of the system that activates the foam. Even if something just sends a signal to a person who the sends a signal back to activate the foam. This would have still happened as the part that activates the foam is what caused it to go off, not the sensing portion of the system.
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love2flygirl
love2flygirl 1
Boys!
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bbabis
bbabis -6
OK, plain and simple. Lightning cannot turn a valve. The fact that it could be auto-activated in any way is the problem.
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NewNole2001
Ashley Grant 9
So you're saying it would be better to have people running around a burning building turning valves? That sounds really safe.
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bbabis
bbabis -3
Talk with Mike T on how the system works and then think about your comment.
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NewNole2001
Ashley Grant 6
No, you need to. Either the valves are manually controlled or they are actuated by a system in some way that, in the end, will come down to an electrical signal being sent to open the valves. It doesn't matter if it is an automated system that does it without human interaction or a human pressing a button to tell the system to open the valves.

What you cannot seem to grasp is that the lightning strike caused an electrical fault that caused the valves to open. It does not matter if a human or a computer sends the signal to open the valves, the lightning would have caused the valves to open.

Again, unless you are advocating for complete manual control of the valves, requiring humans to be in the building performing that task instead of evacuating during an emergency, in which case, sure, the lightning strike would not have opened the valves.
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bbabis
bbabis -5
Thank you for reiterating my point. Lightning, which happens all over the Earth, should not be able to trigger the foam. That system has a single valve, located outside the protected structure, in a fire-safe enclosure with a man door. As you correctly state, no one should need to run around in a burning building if that is indeed the case.

In reality, a foam system has not protected a single aircraft from fire, and in the 240 and counting accidental discharges, hundreds of millions of dollars in damages, lost business, environmental hazards, and one death have occurred. All that and future occurrences could be avoided if a human said Fire YES/NO and manually moved a valve in a safe location if called for.

Disagree if you like, but insurance companies and many fire prevention agencies and professionals are looking for a better way.
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NewNole2001
Ashley Grant 5
And what happens when no human is there? Or are you saying that companies are going to willingly pay for multiple humans to babysit every single hanger? Can't just have one, what if they have a heart attack or fall asleep.

Maybe there is a better way to set up the sensors, but putting a human in the loop on a safety critical system is doubtful.
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jsteiner
Jeff Steiner 2
Shoot, wrong thread, but no way to delete it...
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TimDyck
Tim Dyck 2
Still worth watching since I am following that story too.
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d0ugparker
Doug Parker 1
Ask list members to downvote it until it gets hidden! ;-)
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