FOD OFF!
No, I haven’t misspelled food. I am actually writing about fod, or rather F.O.D.
Like most people reading this I had never heard of FOD. That was until I was watching a TV program about Heathrow Airport’s hidden workers, the people who make the place tick. At Heathrow, there are people who’s job it is to collect FOD. Okay, I’ll put you out of your misery. FOD is an acronym for Foreign Object Debris. And yes, it also means Foreign Object Damage, Field Of Dreams and Female Orgasmic Disorder! But for this piece, we are talking about free moving garbage such as plastic carrier bags and the like blowing in the wind across runways.
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There is, it seems, a lot of FOD about. It can cause damage to aircraft with potentially fatal consequences. Think of Air France’s Concorde that took off and hit an object on the runway, which bounced up, ruptured a fuel tank and set the plane of fire, whereupon it soon crashed killing all on-board. That was all down to FOD.
Believe it or not, there is a FOD website dedicated to news about FOD because it is taken very seriously. Airlines have been known to stop using airports because of the dangers found on runways, Bauerfield International Airport in the South Pacific island nation of Vanuatu is a good example from earlier this year.
So next time you fly, don’t moan about the food, it probably just tastes awful, moan about the FOD instead.
Tom Kane (c) 2016
