EOD ensures runway safety

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Chris Stagner
  • 332nd Air Expeditionary Wing Public Affairs
TALLIL AIR BASE, Iraq (AFPN) --  Remnants from the 1991 Gulf War still reside here, and the 332nd Expeditionary Civil Engineer Squadron’s explosive ordnance disposal team is ensuring those remnants are not able to put people in harm’s way.

The EOD team is working to remove ordnance found in the vicinity of the runway that was putting people and resources in danger.

“The munitions were found on Tallil by the Italian camp,” said Capt. Jerry Sanchez, EOD flight commander, deployed here from Royal Air Force Lakenheath, England. “They’re all over the place.”

With troops and aircraft in the vicinity of the munitions, they pose a direct hazard.

“The fragmentation distance is about 530 feet,” said Senior Master Sgt. Kevin Fitzgerald, EOD flight superintendent, deployed here from McConnell Air Force Base, Kan. “(The munitions) are within that distance (of) the aircraft. A detonation could cause fragmentation holes in the aircraft.”

The airmen determined they could not dispose of the munitions in place.

“The hazardous items were … high explosive, anti-tank sub-munitions that were possibly ejected from an ammunition supply point bombed during (Operation) Desert Storm,” Sanchez said. “The sub-munitions were armed, not allowing EOD (airmen) to safely transport items in their existing condition. In addition, the location of the sub-munitions could not withstand a high-order detonation, eliminating the possibility of an in-place disposal, and thus requiring a more dangerous procedure of rendering safe.”

The procedure is more dangerous than an in-place disposal for more than one reason, Sanchez said.

“Rendering safe increases the amount of time a technician is in a hazardous situation. It also forces the technician to bring tools and equipment around a very hazardous device,” Sanchez said. “These tools must be properly placed for the procedure to work. All these additional factors increase the possibility of something going wrong (during the procedure).”

The procedure requires the EOD technician to remove the fuse from the unexploded ordnance without detonating the ordnance.

“The fuse uses a small amount of sensitive explosives to initiate the insensitive explosive found within the ordnance. Removing the sensitive explosives from the insensitive explosives makes the ordnance safer to transport,” Sanchez said.

“Rendering safe ordnance is what separates EOD (airmen) from (others who) do explosive disposals, handle military ordnance or do explosive operations. EOD is the only unit authorized to conduct render-safe procedures on military ordnance,” he said.

“There’s a lot of traffic here,” Fitzgerald said. “If one (unexploded ordnance) went off while someone drove by, it could kill (him or her).”