An Analysis of the Causes and Cost Implications of Foreign Object Damage (FOD) in the Aviation Industry

Abstract

When classifying the causes of aircraft accidents and incidents, human factors, technical factors (materials, maintenance, repair, overhaul, etc.), environmental factors, and other factors come to the forefront in aviation. Aircraft damage caused by objects other than the aircraft itself is defined in the literature as Foreign Object Damage (FOD). Due to FOD, many aircraft accidents have occurred from the past to the present, and some of them have resulted in fatalities. In aviation, the term FOD refers to any foreign particle or object that comes into contact with an aircraft or system and causes damage to the aircraft. Additionally, the acronym FOD has been used in the literature to refer to Foreign Object Debris, which are unwanted substances found in airports that can damage personnel, aircraft, and equipment. FOD is a major technical problem in the aviation maintenance industry that reduces the safety level of an aircraft, but this problem can be controlled and minimized by using accurate and sensitive methods. For this purpose, a number of automated methods have been developed to detect foreign object debris (waste) that can cause damage, such as Argos AI-FOD, X-Sight –FODetect, Trex Enterprises -FOD Finder, Tarsier Radar, FODRAD, synthetic aperture radar, convolutional neural networks, etc., used in airports. When examining the published literature on aircraft accidents and incidents, it is understood that the "Human Factor" is examined more frequently; however, there are many cases caused by FOD. This study focuses on the sources of foreign object damage in aviation and methods to prevent foreign object damage incidents, and also examines the safety and cost impact of these incidents on aircraft within the scope of the study