Keep pace with rapidly changing aircraft hangar safety requirements.
There are safety considerations and hazards unique to aircraft hangars that must be accounted for to help protect lives and property, and NFPA 409, Standard on Aircraft Hangars, provides the specifications and requirements to help satisfy those concerns.
The standard covers the construction and fire protection of buildings or structures intended to house aircraft, including all sizes and varieties of aircraft hangars utilized for storage and maintenance.
Additional content covers:
- Referenced publications and general and NFPA definitions
- Aircraft hangar group classifications
- Group I and II aircraft hangar construction
- Group I and II aircraft hangar protection
- Group III and IV aircraft hangars
- Paint hangar construction and fire protection
- Inspection, testing, and maintenance
- Special provisions for unfueled aircraft hangars
This standard is a vital resource for architects, designers, engineers, contractors, installers, and facility and construction managers.
The 2026 edition provides a comprehensive reorganization of requirements:
- A new Chapter 6, Construction Features of Aircraft Hangars, has been added.
- A new Chapter 7, Protection of Aircraft Hangars, has been added.
- Chapter 4 now contains requirements relocated from Chapter 6 of the 2022 edition.
- Chapter 4 and Chapter 5 of the 2022 edition have been streamlined into a new single Chapter 5, Fire Protection Approaches.
The 2026 edition also includes technical changes to topics such as unprotected columns, hangar door tracks, draft curtains, and retention locations. Other important updates include:
- Revisions have been made to the Chapter 1 scope, which outlines aircraft and fuel types not previously addressed by the standard.
- In Chapter 4, the aircraft access door height has been changed for Group I, Group II, and Group III hangars from 8.5 m (28 ft) to 10.7 m (35 ft), which accounts for current aircraft design and hangar usage.
- Chapter 5 has been revised to provide streamlined requirements for both fire-risk-based approaches and performance-based design approaches.
- Chapter 6 reintroduces hangar building cluster requirements, with a revised definition observed in Chapter 3.
- New requirements in Chapter 7 outline the use of synthetic fluorine free foam (SFFF) when used in accordance with the manufacturer’s listing.
- Modified technical requirements for specified systems including closed-head water sprinkler systems, low-level foam systems, and drainage floor assemblies.
- A long-standing ITM table in Chapter 8 has been removed and replaced with specified technical requirements that work in tandem with applicable NFPA documents.
- New Annex C, Protection Alternatives, has been provided as guidance on the application and criteria for considering alternative protection methods not prescriptively required by the standard.
