FORT RILEY, Kan. -- Firefighters from Fort Riley Fire and Emergency Services, the Riley County, Kansas, Fire Department and the Manhattan, Kansas, Fire Department trained together during a full-scale aircraft incident exercise at the Manhattan Regional Airport July 19.
During the exercise, a simulated American Airlines aircraft with 41 passengers on board crashed at the airport, resulting in a mass fatality incident. Emergency services personnel responded to put out the fire, treat survivors, control the situation and investigate the scene.
"The scenario was designed to replicate a real incident by having an actual airplane fuselage, mannequins and role players who served as victims," said Sam Dameron, assistant chief, Manhattan Fire Department. "To initiate a response for the scenario an actual 911 call was placed to Riley County Dispatch to report the incident."
Firefighters and emergency medical services personnel could not accomplish this alone, so the Riley County Police Department, Kansas State Police, Riley and Geary County, Kansas, Emergency Management and FBI were brought in to assist with the exercise, just as they would in a real world scenario, said William Hadley, assistant chief of operations, FRFES.
Inside the airport terminal, American Airlines and Transportation Security Administration worked with families of the victims and those seeking information regarding the crash.
"The reason we chose a mass fatality, was one, to test the response of federal agencies," Hadley said. "Mass fatality is a higher response category and the mass causality exercise was practiced at the last full scale exercise. Two, (to) test the reactions of airport officials and their release of information."
The Federal Aviation Administration requires all civilian airports to perform a full-scale exercise every two years. At Manhattan Regional Airport, they rotate every other year doing table top and full scale exercises with local, state and federal emergency services organizations, Hadley said.
Training together plays a vital role in the success of all emergency operations for the responders involved. Understanding how each organization works allows them to work together more efficiently when responding to mutual aid requests, he said.
"Overall, over the past eight years or so, personnel and budgets have been reduced both on the Department of Defense and civilian emergency response side, so with these reductions, it is vital to have as many resources available, as soon as possible, to be able to mitigate a large scale incident as quickly, efficiently and safely as you can," Hadley said. "Even with optimum manning and a budget account overflowing, sometimes, especially on large scale incidents, everyone needs a little help. With an incident at Manhattan Airport, large aircraft and large number of potential victims and heat factored in, they are going to need some assistance very quick, so by working out the mutual aid agreements, it is letting the partner know that we can assist in a time of need as long as we don't have an incident of our own happening on the installation that has our resources tied up."
Although the training was a success, it was not without issues and challenges, such as communication and dispatch complications.
"Obviously, planning and coordinating so many agencies is a challenge, Dameron said.
"We conduct multiple tabletop exercise and scenarios for all types of events. Training for these types of events in a controlled environment allows everyone to train together and create plans to assist all of us for when a real emergency happens."
In addition to creating plans for future operations so they work seamlessly together, the exercises show them the problems they have and allow them to create solutions, Hadley said.
"No exercise or drill should ever go 100 percent perfect," Hadley said. "If it does, then it wasn't planned to test the capabilities of all of the responding agencies, something is always going to happen and how the responders and incident commander adapt to that change is what makes the exercise a success or failure. The responders and incident commander adapted to the shortfalls that were presented to them, which made this drill a success, still have room for improvement, but it was a success."
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