FOD = Foreign Objects and Debris
EFB = Electronic Flight Bag. A flight bag, traditionally, contains charts and checklists. EFB means you have a device that contains those documents
20 years ago, I was an avionics technician on F-16 fighter jets in the USAF. We had 'FOD Walks' daily, which involved slowly walking down the flightline while staring at the ground, and picking up any loose objects
Even a tiny object, when ingested into a jet engine, can cause catastrophic damage. And F-16s have intakes very low to the ground, making them a much higher FOD risk.
The worst FOD events were when something broke. We used bit drivers to remove aircraft panels, and the bits were fairly standard screwdriver bits. Sometimes, one of those bits would shatter when applying force to remove a stubborn fastener. If that happens, you have to retrieve every single piece of metal. If you return your toolbox at the end of the day and it is missing anything that can't be accounted for, the entire flightline could be shut down while a search is carried out.
Dropping things in the cockpit could sometimes be much worse. If it drops down into a void left by removing a control panel, then it could potentially fall to the 'bottom' of the aircraft. If that happens, you'll be taking off all the panels in that vicinity, you'll have multiple people looking with flashlights, borescopes, etc.
If something is dropped but can't be found, that's probably a multi-day event that will involve some fairly high ranking people.
FOD was considered a serious threat, and a tiny piece of metal broken off of a tool could hinder operations for days at a time
A reminder that the fatal crash of Air France Flight 4590, Concorde on takeoff from Charles de Gaulle airport, France, in 2000 was due to tire debris on the runway:
While taking off from Charles de Gaulle Airport, the aircraft ran over debris on the runway, causing a tyre to explode and disintegrate. Tyre fragments, launched upwards at great speed by the rapidly spinning wheel, violently struck the underside of the wing, damaging parts of the landing gear – thus preventing its retraction – and causing the integral fuel tank to rupture. Large amounts of fuel leaking from the rupture ignited, causing a loss of thrust in the left-hand-side engines 1 and 2. The aircraft lifted off, but the loss of thrust, high drag from the extended landing gear, and fire damage to the flight controls made it impossible to maintain control. The jet crashed into a hotel in nearby Gonesse two minutes after takeoff. All nine crew and 100 passengers on board were killed, as well as four people in the hotel. Six other people in the hotel were critically injured.
The debris was a metal strip "435 millimetres (17.1 in) long, 29 to 34 millimetres (1.1 to 1.3 in) wide, and 1.4 millimetres (0.055 in) thick", which had detached from a DC-10 which had taken off five minutes prior to the Concorde.
It is my understanding that, after the loss of the Concorde, one of the resultant advisories mentioned an automated FOD detection system, which did not exist at the time. There are now multiple companies selling such systems, using radar and optical sensors, and the FAA has advisories related to same [1] (pdf link)
The best possible outcome from a fatal crash is regulation that will prevent similar accidents in the future. I don't think automatic FOD detection is mandatory (at least, I can't find any evidence of a mandate) - but I assume that it will eventually be mandated, as costs come down.
Im onboard with examining the social costs around technology, and business should be held accountable for the harm and costs that they externalize in the name of quarterlies. That is long overdue.
But to shoehorn it into the actionable and very direct context around aviation safety is a bit disingenuous. When a server crashes, the normal result is that it costs money. When an airliner crashes, hundreds of people die.
It doesn’t seem that they make a good metaphorical pair.
> When a server crashes, the normal result is that it costs money.
IT security isn't only about "not crashing servers".
> When an airliner crashes, hundreds of people die.
I've just showed examples where likely hundreds of people died because of missing impact evaluation on IT systems.
I think this is related.
As long as people don't see this nothing will change.
So yes, maybe my context switch is a little bit drastic. But this was the intend: To show similarities in outcomes and at the same time the hubris that things aren't taken seriously in the one case where they are taken very very serous in the other case, regardless of identical outcomes.
I’m with you on the impact, especially going forward, of overall data infrastructure integrity. Failures in this realm will increasingly put the well being of people at stake.
My objection was more of the “catastrophic IT failure rarely causes direct physical harm, whereas catastrophic failures in aviation almost always results in fatalities” variety.
But yes, data infrastructure integrity is definitely an issue that must be treated as critical, and increasingly, as a life safety issue in some cases.
Although I feel like referencing self harm is not really in good faith here , because if that was a rational connection we should also be talking about treating interpersonal relations and good manners as a life safety issue in the same way that we regulate aviation.
20 years ago, I was an avionics technician on F-16 fighter jets in the USAF. We had 'FOD Walks' daily, which involved slowly walking down the flightline while staring at the ground, and picking up any loose objects
Even a tiny object, when ingested into a jet engine, can cause catastrophic damage. And F-16s have intakes very low to the ground, making them a much higher FOD risk.
The worst FOD events were when something broke. We used bit drivers to remove aircraft panels, and the bits were fairly standard screwdriver bits. Sometimes, one of those bits would shatter when applying force to remove a stubborn fastener. If that happens, you have to retrieve every single piece of metal. If you return your toolbox at the end of the day and it is missing anything that can't be accounted for, the entire flightline could be shut down while a search is carried out.
Dropping things in the cockpit could sometimes be much worse. If it drops down into a void left by removing a control panel, then it could potentially fall to the 'bottom' of the aircraft. If that happens, you'll be taking off all the panels in that vicinity, you'll have multiple people looking with flashlights, borescopes, etc.
If something is dropped but can't be found, that's probably a multi-day event that will involve some fairly high ranking people.
FOD was considered a serious threat, and a tiny piece of metal broken off of a tool could hinder operations for days at a time