USAF Engineer Pops the Question During FOD Walk at Laughlin

Foreign object debris walks are typically all about keeping things—especially garbage and aircrafts’ inner workings—apart.

But during a recent safety-driven jaunt at Laughlin Air Force Base, Texas, two members of the 47th Civil Engineer Squadron decided to tie their futures together.

Squadron civilian engineer David De La Cruz proposed to 1st Lt. Jorden Sowden on a Feb. 21 FOD walk at the Texas installation, the base announced in a Feb. 23 Facebook post featuring pictures from the flight line proposal.

One of the photos depicts De La Cruz taking a knee in front of Sowden to pop the question as their squadron colleagues looked on from a pandemic-friendly distance.

David De La Cruz (left) and 1st Lt. Jorden Snowden (right) pose for a photo following his flight line proposal on Feb. 21, 2021. Photo: 2nd Lt. Rachael Parks/USAF

The couple, who met at the base, have both been stationed at Laughlin for 3 years, the base wrote.

The two aren’t the first members of the USAF community to use an unorthodox, but AvGeek-worthy, setting as a romantic backdrop in the past year.

On Nov. 10, two Reservists assigned to Dobbins Air Reserve Base, Ga., tied the knot aboard a C-130 immediately following a pre-scheduled training sortie, Air Force Magazine previously reported.