FOD concept
FOD is the acronym for "Foreign Objects and Debris" on landing runways which possible aspiration through a turbine can originate the loss of one or several aircraft engines at the moment of its landing or take-off, causing an accident that can imply its loss, the crew's, the passenger's or the cargo's
FOD's real effects
In 2009 a Concorde airplane crashed in Paris with the result of 109 passengers and 4 members of the crew dead when it crashed on the ground which also caused the total retirement of this type of airplanes from the airlines with huge monetary losses for the involved airlines.
Later investigations confirmed that the cause of the fire was produced by a FOD of about 15 cms. long that was on the runway of the Concorde and that had been unpinned from an airplane that had taken-off from the same position a couple of minutes before.
Damages and losses
Se estima en más de 4 billones de USD dólares los gastos anuales solo por concepto de reparaciones y mantenimiento de aeronaves atribuibles o causados por FOD. A esto hay que adicionar otros costos asociados como retrasos y cancelaciones de vuelo, pérdida de productividad y de ingresos, posibles responsabilidades debidas a accidentes y daños al prestigio y reputación de las aerolíneas.
New regulations to avoid the FODs
The ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization) and the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) require in a mandatory way to airports, daily inspections in daytime of its respective areas of airship's manoeuvres and the removal of FOD. In July 2005, the ICAO modified 2 articles from the Annex 14, changing their status of "recommendable practices" to "standards" (obligations), which implies to the different Aeronautical Authorities of the different countries, the immediate adoption of standards that lead to the improvement of their detection and removal of FODs systems.
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