Nearly 400 gallons of foam fills Alabama Coast Guard hangar after ‘fault in system’

MOBILE, Ala. ( WKRG ) — United States Coast Guard crewmen on duty at the Aviation Training Center in Mobile, Alabama, were shocked to find their hangar full of high-expansion foam on Sunday evening.

According to Lt. Earl Roberts, the Mobile Aviation Training Center Public Relations Officer, the foam was activated due to a fault in the system.

He said a crew member left Hangar 2 to go to another hangar to work on an aircraft. But when that crew member returned, Hangar 2’s alarms were going off, and nearly 400 gallons of high-expansion foam began filling the building.

“Still cleaning up (and) by the time we are done with the inspections and everything, it will probably last us till the end of the week,” Lt. Roberts said.

“We have a barracks over on the other side of the base,” Lt. Roberts, who was on duty Sunday evening, said. “I was hanging out over there watching some Netflix.”

Suddenly, he received a call around 6:45 p.m. saying they needed all hands on deck at Hangar 2.

“I was honestly amazed at how big that mess was,” Lt. Roberts said.

According to Lt. Roberts, the high-expansion foam activates when the fire alarm goes off or a button on the wall is pressed. But there was no fire or emergency on Sunday night.

“We believe that it was just a fault in the system that accidentally set it off,” Lt. Roberts said.

Inside the hangar were three HC-144 Ocean Sentry airplanes and four MH-60 Jayhawk helicopters.

“The aircraft were not a complete loss,” Lt. Roberts said. “We are going through inspections right now. There are multiple inspections we have to do on each aircraft to kind of assess how much damage was done.”

Nobody was inside the hangar at the time of the defect in the system.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to CW33 Dallas / Ft. Worth.