Foreign Objects can become FOD - foreign object damage

I was headed to Texas on temporary duty. As I sat in one of those big airports, waiting for a long layover to end, I began watching the baggage handlers down below. They move real fast and can load up a jet Pretty Darn Quick (PDQ). Anyway, I was watching these guys driving around for about 30 minutes when I started to look at something else down there in the loading area: Yup. FO! You know, Foreign Objects that can lead to Foreign Object Damage (FOD)! The funny thing was, it wasn't on the ground exactly.

The guys had thrown it onto the roof of the baggage entryway, which was just below my eye-level. I counted 13 pieces of trash there on that roof: a shampoo bottle, shards of wood, and five broken luggage castors. You could tell some of it had been there quite a while by the color of the wood and the amount of rust. "Man!" I thought, but that was about it. A couple of hours later (yeah, I know--I'm kinda slow) it hits me, "Steve, you're part of the FO problem because you didn't take any action!"

Well, as luck would have it, on my return trip to Minot Air Force Base, N.D., I was sitting in another big airport on a layover, staring out the window and watching the baggage guys--did I mention that they can load up a jet PDQ? Anyway, I'm watching the baggage guys and--Yup, you guessed it--there it was again: FO! Except this time, it isn't on the roof. It's below the window about 30 yards directly in front of my Boeing 757. There was gravel and assorted pieces of trash just sort of strewn up against the building. While they did have a FOD can, it was overflowing!

Remembering my failure to act a couple of weeks earlier, I asked the gate receptionist for a comment card. There weren't any. But luck intervened, and I met a supervisor. I introduced myself and told her what I had seen. In addition to all the FOD along the building, I also pointed out a "possessed" Styrofoam cup that was doing everything it could to get ingested into one of the jets that kept taxiing by. Well, that lady went right down there and had one of the baggage handlers retrieve that cup. One small step for FOD ... Well, you get the picture.

After a couple of hours on a weather hold, I was on the jet, making my way back north. As we taxied along I watched the vortices, like little tornadoes, sucking water off the ground beneath the engines and knew that, because of me, there was one less piece of FO on that airfield. How about you? Make a difference in the fight against FOD. It isn't just a cup; it is an attitude.

COPYRIGHT 2002 U.S. Department of the Air Force
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group