New airport hangar gets covered in foam after ‘accidental discharge’

Incident occurred in Delta Air Lines’ new hangar

The Delta hangar was covered in foam (Airliners.net/Tankdiver)

An airport hangar was completely covered in foam after an “accidental discharge” earlier this week.

The incident occurred at Delta Air Lines’ new hangar at Los Angeles International Airport, reports Simply Flying.

Video and photos shared on social media show the tarmac outside the hangar completely covered in several inches of foam, with an aircraft parked in the middle of it.

The deluge looks like fresh snow, and appears to extend tens of metres from the hangar.

Jason Rabinowitz shared a picture of the spectacle on Twitter with the caption: “Found on anet and totally unconfirmed, the fire suppression foam system at Delta’s LAX hangar was accidentally triggered and made a very big (and expensive) mess.”

Twitter user Alex replied: “Video posted on Snapchat seems to confirm that the fire suppression foam system was activated last night.”

The story and pictures were originally shared on aviation forum Airliners.net.

“Delta’s LAX new hanger had an accidental foam discharge overnight. It was pretty thick, up to the wings of some smaller aircraft,” read the original post.

One forum user posited it was caused by an aircraft that was backed into the hangar with an auxiliary power unit (APU), which triggered the fire suppression system.

A Delta spokesperson confirmed that the fire suppression system in the hangar malfunctioned and that this triggered the foam dispersal.

The airline said it is investigating the incident but that it caused no disruption to scheduled services.

Delta is working with its local environmental contractor to clean up the foam as quickly as possible.