Sweet Tooth Creates
FOD Incident, Damages
Ground Equipment

Carelessness can trigger FOD and ruin your day in a hurry.

Every day FOD damages equipment on a flight line somewhere, costing thousands of dollars in repairs. We all know it affects our operations when assets are not available to support a flight. It may be as simple as a flat tire caused by a nail. Or it may be the loss of a vital piece of equipment removed from service at a critical time.

Recently I received the following short story of just such an incident from a FOD Brother in the Air National Guard out in Pennsylvania:

A technician was called to the flight line to assess a problem with a generator that had failed. Upon inspection he discovered a foil-wrapped candy bar that someone had dropped onto a terminal board, shorting out the generator's electrical system. That's right...a little piece of candy wrapped in foil! It took more than 8 hours to repair all the burnt wiring and terminal boards. Luckily this generator did not catch on fire and no damage was done to the aircraft it was connected to.

But this incident reminds us that anything can cause Foreign Object Damage, and FOD affects everything and everyone on the flight line. It wastes time, manpower and assets. A critical part of our mission and responsibility is to emphasize FOD prevention in all aspects of flying -- from the aircraft to each piece of equipment used to service them.

Remember, anything can become FOD. Even a "harmless" little candy bar.

Christian A. Wood
913 AW MXG/MXQ
Willow Grove ARS PA