Aircraft Were Covered In A Sea Of Fire Retardant Foam

Blackhawk helicopters covered in fire retardant foam. Photo courtesy of Reddit

We dug up a crazy story, and we had to read all the way to the end to find out if a handful of Blackhawks were trashed. Here's what led us down that path.

A reader wrote in to tell us about his recent experience getting his plane nearly covered by an accidental release of fire suppressant foam in a shared hangar. He wasn't very lucky, but the FBO was; there was only one plane in the hangar at the time.

So we looked back to see what we could find and were horrified at this 2014 incident in which a hangar full of Blackhawk helicopter got covered in foam. The aircraft were at an Air National Guard base in Tulsa, Oklahoma, when the foam fire suppressant system was accidentally activated. Yikes. The rest, as you can see, is history.

So what happened to the Blackhawks? As it turned out, nothing bad happened to them, other than getting an earlier-than-scheduled hosing down. The foam was water washable and even the avionics were fine. We didn't find out who was responsible for the foam job, but finding out they hadn't just trashed a hangar full of Blackhawks must have been one of the happiest moments of their life.

Plane & PilotStaff