Yesterday a British Airways aircraft hangar, at London Heathrow Airport, was involved in a foaming incident, after a fire extinguishing system was triggered.

At the time of the incident, a British Airways Boeing 777-200ER, with registration G-YMMB, was parked in the hangar.

The photos and video in the tweet below show the hangar floor covered with fire retardant foam. You can see that the hangar was mostly empty of people, but it is unclear if there were any injuries or not.

Fire retardant foam is used in most major maintenance hangars in the world; they have a capacity system which can fill a large hangar within minutes, preventing a fire from spreading to any aircraft and minimising as much damage to the building itself as possible.

Although it looks like a small incident it can be expensive. Fire retardant foam, like the one in the images, is highly corrosive to an aircraft, due to the chemical components that help extinguish the flames.

All the parts affected by the foam, like the main landing gear, need to be carefully analysed and then cleaned.

One of our fire prevention systems in our hanger experienced a technical issue, causing foam to be dispersed as part of a safety feature. The aircraft was not damaged and no-one was injured.

Catarina was born in Lisbon, Portugal. Since childhood she became an aviation enthusiast. 2 years ago, she became interested in aviation photography. Catarina graduated with Mechanical Engineering and currently taking the AME license with TAP Air Portugal.

I know NOTHING about these. Surely there are several of these nozzles around the hangar. And surely some of them spray UP, and onto any fire. Merely flooding the floor doesn’t seem a sure-fire (pun) way to put out a burning aircraft? Assuming THAT, it’s fortunate one of them did not go off!