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Negligent Discharge, Navy Style

by AW1Ed••49


MH-60R Seahawk

Someone has some ‘splaining to do.

Accidental foam discharge damages several Navy helicopters

By Geoff Ziezulewicz

Several Navy MH-60R Seahawk helicopters were damaged last month after firefighting foam accidentally discharged in a hangar aboard Naval Station Mayport, Florida, officials confirmed Monday.

The incident occurred on Sept. 20 in Helicopter Maritime Strike Squadron 40?s hangar, damaging four of the aircraft, according to Naval Air Force Atlantic spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Robert Myers and the Naval Safety Center.

For reasons that remain under investigation, the hangar’s aqueous aqueous fire fighting foam system went off in the hanger that day, dousing the helos.

Now there’s a phone call I’d rather not make. “Morning Skipper, Bay 2 is filled with AFFF. We think there are a couple/three helos under all that.”

LCDR Myers, who wasn’t there, claims the squadron suffered “No mission impact.”

Riiiiight.

Navy Times

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49 thoughts on “Negligent Discharge, Navy Style”

  1. If the aircraft were properly buttoned-up for the weekend (doors and panels closed, intake and exhaust covers installed, etc) the impact would be minimal. AFFF can be corrosive, so the remedial action is to wash the aircraft and for a helicopter, do an engine gas path cleaning.
    On the other hand, if the aircraft were open, the cleaning becomes much more labor-intensive and mission disruptive.
    Also… FIRST! (That seems to be a thing around here.)

    1. President Elect Toxic Deplorable Racist SAH Neanderthal B Woodman Domestic Violent Extremist SuperStraight says:

      (psssst….”First” only counts on Friday afternoon, “Weekend Open Thread”. But it’s good that you’re paying attention. Limber up that keyboard F5 key, & high-speed your internet. And, “welcome to the party, pal”)

  2. Hey! Let he who is amongst us that HASN’T had an accidental discharge, throw the FIRST (ht 2 Roh-Dog) stone.

    1. President Elect Toxic Deplorable Racist SAH Neanderthal B Woodman Domestic Violent Extremist SuperStraight says:

      I was going to say something snarky about “extra unaccounted for children”……..but I won’t go there………today.

      1. Yeah, unaccounted-for children in one thing that NO one could EVER accuse Lars of being responsible for…

      2. Had a ND one time. With my wife and a safety device failure.

        No children resulted that incident.

        Concerning other types of ND – keep the booger-hook off the bang switch. However, I have no training in NDs of fire suppression materials.

        1. I have no training in fire suppression ND’s, but I was the victim of one. Heading out to do some tower camera maintenance along the border, my partner tosses his ruck into the back seat of our Tahoe. Right on top of the fire extinguisher. That has no safety pin. Poof…

        1. eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww

        2. I have access to the TAH Media Library. Do we really want to go there? Remember, that which has been seen, cannot be unseen.

          1. No, no, no!!! Please don’t go there!!!! Not that which cannot be UNSEEN!!!! ANYTHING BUT THAT!!!!! Noooooo…

  3. Oops!

    Hope HSM-40’s corrosion control and avionics shops are ready for some 24/7 clean up ops.

    “No mission impact.”

    WTF, NAVAIRLANT?

  5. “No mission impact” = Birds who are cannibalized “Hangar Queens” waiting parts and haven’t had a flight hour logged in over six weeks./s

  6. Biden and Boi Milley can make a gift of those to Taliban as salvage parts and accessories.

  8. Shit been there did that- HB1 AFFF PMS maint fail on CV-60 in’92 2 days into the cruise. The Emer Rec did more damage to my gear than the foam.

      1. Ahh, Saratoga! The Med liberty ship!

        When I was in the Med, that carrier seemed to pull into port every other day!

  9. This happened on Independence in 1988 going around the horn (homeport change to San Diego). I won’t get into the particulars in the interest of brevity, but the hangar bay 2 AFFF fired and dumped all over the very tightly packed airplanes (everything was struck below due to the very rough seas)
    Yes, panels were open. What a mess. If I remember correctly they held captain’s mast on SITE tv.

  10. OT, But it looks like promotion opportunities seem to abound at PSNS. Lots of senior people seem to be going FU at the vaccine mandate.

    1. Just talked to my son in law, he is chage of civilian non nuc side of PSNS and has had to let one person go, but he was a shit bag with lots of problems. Says about 48% got the jab when offered, now about 75%, but that’s only civilian side. All 3 of my grandchildren work their. As did my Mom and Dad.

  11. Could be worse. Can you imagine the grief if Confederate Battle flags dropped from the hanger ceiling? Mandatory 72 hour unit stand down.

    1. Damn, wrong thread, but y’all get the idea. Maybe if admin really loves me they will move these to the Germany Thread…you know…in addition to their other duties. 😛

    1. Nobody cared back then because the country wasn’t run or influenced by a bunch of psycho race baiters trying to foment a crypto-commie takeover and destruction of our republic.

  16. Another ND story for the books, WESTPAC ‘99. After finishing an exercise and backloading, an LAV-25 had a ND that struck a well deck bulkhead in the amphib! Two sailors were superficially injured, pretty sure it was a TP round. That was a jaw dropper, got to remain vigilant.

  17. That happened when I was stationed at HSL-34 in Norfolk, but I don’t remember it making the news.

    Maybe because H-2’s weren’t exactly state of the art equipment at the time (they were retired and the squadron decommissioned shortly after my time there in the early ’90’s).

    Luckily there weren’t many detachments at home at the time and if I remember correctly, there were only 3 birds in the hangar when it went off. We still had to do emergency rec on all the support equipment in the hangar at the time, and those three birds were down for a while, but it could have been much worse.

    I don’t remember them ever figuring out what caused it to fire. Probably just old, worn out sensors or something.

    Back then we ran Emergency Reclamation drills on a pretty regular basis so we responded quickly and efficiently when it happened to us, if I do say so myself. Not a fun evolution, but at least not a cluster….

    No telling what’s going on these days. Emergency Rec drills may have been replaced by struggle sessions or the two minutes hate.

  18. Not sure where the pull handle in a Helo hangar is, but our equipment vans always had the “pull in case of emergency” switch (right next to the covered switch for the thermites). I can recall many of my about to ETS personnel talking (where they thought they could not be heard) about pulling it their last day.

    I never mentioned it to any of them directly…I would just explain to their, still active, buddies that one of these days we need to get the cleaning procedures on the training schedule for these vans…since we don’t practice it enough. After I would talk with their NCOs about the actual clean up procedures involved of just the Halon…heaven forbid they touch the Thermite switch. Word would usually get back to the culprit to not even think about it…or we will throw a blanket not a going away party!
    Wonder if that is what happened!?

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