Foam 331—First Responder to the Nation’s Worst Aviation Crisis

At 9:37 am Eastern Time on September 11, 2001, two fire captains—Michael Defina and John Durrer—from the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority Fire & Rescue Department, based at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, were standing on the departures level of the main terminal. They were responding to a minor vehicle accident, but their attention quickly turned toward a low rumble, followed by smoke rising to the northwest. Already alarmed by the reports of two airliners impacting the World Trade Center towers in New York City, both sprang into action. Defina jumped into his chief’s wagon, while Durrer and three others jumped into Engine 335, a conventional pumper with rescue equipment.

Following shortly behind was one of the airport’s two Oshkosh T-3000 foam-carrying rescue trucks—Foam 331—driven by Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (MWAA) firefighter Cary Henry. He had over 3,000 gallons of water on board, along with 420 gallons of foam and 500 pounds of a dry chemical retardant specially formulated for use on jet fuel fires. Reagan National air traffic controllers initially reported a 757 crashing near the north edge of the field on the George Washington Parkway. As Henry exited the airport to drive onto the Parkway, onlookers were pointing towards the Pentagon where a large column of black smoke was rising.

As the MWAA firefighters arrived on site at the Pentagon’s south parking lot, they could begin to see the devastation on the west side (Wedge 1) of the Pentagon’s E-ring, where American Airlines Flight 77, a Boeing 757 aircraft with 64 people on board, including the five Al-Qaeda hijackers, had hit. A huge hole filled with burning jet fuel was all that remained of the Navy Command Center. Henry began using Foam 331’s bumper and roof turrets to project foam onto the inferno to allow rescue teams to begin approaching the impact area.

The first responders encountered few survivors on scene when arriving five minutes after impact, and only one emerged on their own from the rubble after they arrived. Unfortunately, the fate of the 124 fatalities among Pentagon workers had largely been sealed by this point. Defina quickly called for Reagan National’s other Oshkosh T-3000 foam truck, Foam 345. The foam truck assigned to the Pentagon for its helipad was severely damaged in the impact, so Foam 331 and Foam 345 bore the brunt of suppressing the intense jet fuel conflagration. The Arlington County Fire Department who commanded the scene assigned Durrer to concentrate the foam on the impact site.

Unfortunately, access to the damaged area quickly became more complicated. At 10:15 am, the fire-weakened structures above the impact hole collapsed and three floors above came crashing down. The trucks soon ran out of foam and had to switch to spraying water from their cannons in addition to a dry chemical fire suppressing agent while Defina ordered a 1,000-gallon foam tanker from Washington Dulles International Airport to the scene to keep Foam 331 and Foam 345 supplied. Throughout the day, the MWAA foam trucks worked alongside conventional firefighting apparatus from numerous other local jurisdictions.

The efforts of Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority firefighters and their foam trucks in conjunction with the other responding jurisdictions succeeded in suppressing the fire, limiting further loss of life and damage. Foam 331 later transferred to service at Dulles Airport before its retirement in 2016. After being purchased by a Canadian company, Team Eagle, CEO Steve McKeown made plans to preserve it with the original manufacturer, Oshkosh Airport Products.

In 2021, retired MWAA firefighter Bill Stewart and the Aircraft Rescue & Fire Fighting (ARFF) Working Group raised funds and worked with Oshkosh Airport Products to help return Foam 331 to its original appearance at the time of the 9/11 attacks and facilitate its donation to the National Air and Space Museum.

It is now on display at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center—a tribute to the day-to-day safety and security provided by ARFF crews to the nation’s airports and to the extraordinary efforts they played in responding to the terrorist attack on the Pentagon.