Armonk - Plane Crash - DISCUSSION

[aviator70 16]

Federal Aviation Regulation FAR139 - Certification and Operations: Land Airports Serving Certain Air Carriers

Specifically, 139.315 states the Index of the airport's operational needs for ARFF equipment, in which case Westchester is Index B. The aircraft that decides this for HPN is the Airbus A320, flown by jetBlue at 123' long. FAR 139.317 determines how many pieces of apparatus the airport needs and how much water, foam, and dry-chem the apparatus must carry. Technically, Westchester can remain open to air carrier/airline operations with one of our trucks, thus be capable of allowing a truck to respond off field if necessary. Even with the tactical capabilities of the trucks the airport is still limited to the fact that it only operates a fire brigade, similar to that at the Grasslands Reservation in Valhalla.

Now let's put it this way: If the airport had all 3 vehicles in service at all times, HPN would meet the requirement for the next index up ©. If the airfield was capable of these operations (and it's not) we would see aircraft like the Boeing 757.

The easiest way to this info is http://www.flightsim...S/part_139.html , and Subpart D has all the information.

You are correct, if they had 3 manned pieces and can meet the time requirements. They always had 2 (and a very old spare that never worked) Also, is that 3rd piece manned? I believe not, and it in the maintenance area, and can they apparatus respond within the 3 and 4 minute requirements? Maybe, maybe not, and yes, they operate as a brigade. While the equipment is top notch, is has limitations as does the fire brigade.

[aviator70 16]

Do the response time requirements still exist? When I was there, it was 3 minutes for the first truck and 4 minutes for the 2nd truck.

[firedude 985]

Do the response time requirements still exist? When I was there, it was 3 minutes for the first truck and 4 minutes for the 2nd truck.

Yes, Those requiremnets still exist for a "B" ARFF Index.

Airport Rescue and Firefighting Requirements – Part 139 (PDF)

Edited June 19, 2011 by firedude

[spin_the_wheel 460]

Thats why we drill. You don't send out the same response for a gas main explosion as you do for an odor of gas just for practice, why is that OK for an aircraft emergency??

Hhmm well we will agree to disagree. First no matter how good the "drill" is ,it is never the same as the real thing. This wasnt a plane in trouble that landed in a walmart parking lot with a happy ending.

Second I dont understand how you can compare an odor of gas call to a confirmed aircraft down with fire in a wooded area which will be manpower intensive getting equipment both fire and medical in and out of the area. Also a possible hazmat situation with runoff that could contaminate drinking water to parts of NYC and Westchester. Not to mention 4 DOA. I think the response was a bit more then practice for the folks who responded, and were first due. This type of thing doesnt happen every month, this may be a once in a career call for most of these people involved.

[rescue83 2]

armonk had 2 ambulances 51-b2 and 51-b3 also NCPD found the plane in the woods first then it was armonk ems then batt 19 and more then after the doa's were reported by armonk ems the first ems unit there. ems 11 confirmed with 60. hazmat was never called because DEP PD did not need hazmat since it was on there property. county also had 2 light towers and the fuel trailer. WCPD also had there field com unit. DEP had 2 k-9 units and there UTV,ATV and 2 ESU trucks and many many patrol units

[Bnechis 3,961]

Hhmm well we will agree to disagree. First no matter how good the "drill" is ,it is never the same as the real thing.

True, but having seen how bad the drills are, this does not make me feel any better.

10 Chiefs

8 Engines

1 Tanker

1 Tower Ladder

1 Rescue

1 ARFF

2 Fire Coordinators

1 Field Comm

Assorted other units.

6 Ambulances

1 Flycar

2 EMS Coordinators

2 Air Units

5 Police Depts

4-5 FD relocations.

Second I dont understand how you can compare an odor of gas call to a confirmed aircraft down with fire in a wooded area which will be manpower intensive getting equipment both fire and medical in and out of the area.

10 fire departments (plus PD, & EMS). The airport plan does not send much more to an Airbus 320 with 8,000 gals of fuel.

Also a possible hazmat situation with runoff that could contaminate drinking water to parts of NYC and Westchester.

This plan carries 28 gallons of fuel, the Kensico Reservoir holds 30.6 BILLION Gallons of water. I suspect it gets more fuel in the run off from I-684 which is less than 12 feet from it (yes I know they have a boom set up there). And the plan crashed on land so if it was just a leak it was unlikely to get to the water, but as a great hazmat instructor once told me, its not a hazmat incident if all the product is on fire, its a fire incident.

Not to mention 4 DOA. I think the response was a bit more then practice for the folks who responded, and were first due. This type of thing doesnt happen every month, this may be a once in a career call for most of these people involved.

1st due is one thing, but by the 8th due.........

Once in a career, I think you are being over drimatic.

The Cessna holds a maximum of 6 people and has a 28 gallon fuel tank.

Most mini vans hold 8 people and have a 20-22 gallon fuel tank.

Full size vans carry up to 12 and have up to 40 gallon tanks.

How many responses to a 2 vehicle MVA (with more fuel and people) get this kind of response?

[x129K 1,393]

Let's not mention the potential for a collision between any of the MULTIPLE units coming in from every direction.

I would say it is the IC's obligation to downsize the response based on the incident at hand as soon as possible.

[JBJ1202 27]

Armonk FD: Car 2021 (IC), Car 2022, Car 2023, Tanker 9, UTV

Chappaqua FD:

Greenwich FD:

Purchase FD: Car 2411, Car 2412, Rescue 30, Utility 10, Engine 238, Engine 240

Hawthorne FD:

Banksville FD: Stand-by in HQ

West Harrison FD: Stand-by in HQ

Port Chester FD: 2393, Tower Ladder 2, Engine 29, Engine 62, Engine 64

Valhalla FD: Car 2482, County Gators

Rye Brook FD: Engine 14 Armonk EMS: 51B3

Westchester EMS: 45-Medic-1

Port Chester-Rye Brook EMS: 77A2

Harrison EMS: 66A4

White Plains EMS:

Greenwich EMS:

WCDES: Car 1, Field Communication 1, EMS Battalion 10, EMS Battalion 11, Fire Battalion 11, Fire Battalion 19

Westchester County PD: Aviation 2, Airport Patrols, Road Patrols, K-9, Intel Sgt.

North Castle PD: ESU, Patrol, Lieutenant, Detectives DEP PD: Patrol, Detectives, Air 6

NYSP Troop K: Patrol Units

HPN OPS: Airport 7, 11 (ARFF Units)

Mount Pleasant PD: Patrol

While I understand that a large commercial airplane will require a major response. This was basicly a mini van that crashed off the road.

Barry,

This was dispatched as a level two response (medium size). The type of aircraft that was involved falls under the level 1 plan. Resources that were added included additional EMS and Banksvilles tanker. The rundown above is incorrect and does not reflect the time certain units were on scene. Having the airport response dispatched outside the property and the unknown location of the aircraft made the beginning a little frustrating.

[JAD622 40]

I dont understand how you can compare an odor of gas call to a confirmed aircraft down

I believe he compared an odor of gas to a gas main explosion, not a confirmed aircraft down.

[StOpGoBlUE 11]

armonk had 2 ambulances 51-b2 and 51-b3 also NCPD found the plane in the woods first then it was armonk ems then batt 19 and more then after the doa's were reported by armonk ems the first ems unit there. ems 11 confirmed with 60. hazmat was never called because DEP PD did not need hazmat since it was on there property. county also had 2 light towers and the fuel trailer. WCPD also had there field com unit. DEP had 2 k-9 units and there UTV,ATV and 2 ESU trucks and many many patrol units

should get your facts straight, batt 19 was in the staging area , wcpd,nc esu and port chester fire and pcrb ems were in the woods with battalion 11,2023,ems11 and 2393 who found the plane and gave an excellent descrition to where the plane was , it was visable as soon as you pulled in 113 king

[ptwatson 82]

Engine 29 out of Port Chester? Engine 29 is out of Eastchester. Am I missing something?

[TR54 239]

Engine 29 out of Port Chester? Engine 29 is out of Eastchester. Am I missing something?

Probably a typo , Engine 59.

[aviator70 16]

Cessna 210 holds 28 gallons of gas???? Wrong. More like between 60 and 70 gallons. Bottom line is the County Airport has a plan in place, approved by the FAA, and the plan was put into place as seen fit by the county, right, wrong, no matter what it was. Sadly, 4 people lost their lives, including 2 young girls. Hopefully as soon as the units realized they were not needed, sadly, they departed back to their respectful districts and did not "stick" around for the sake of "sticking: around or "taking a look". One thing that many need to realize is that the airport response is set and agreed upon with the FAA. They do not do it like others in the emergency services do. It may not be relevant in this case as it is off airport.

[aviator70 16]

I completely agree with you. The Strikers are self-sufficient, water hauling, monsters with so many capabilities, it is a shame that they don't respond to more incidents off-field. And the airport is more than capable of sending at least one CFR apparatus off site. Note we have 2 Strikers, and we meet the FAA standard for HPN's ARFF index with just 1 truck.

I would love to see more responses to off site incidents, unfortunately there's a bit of red tape in the way.

Nice trucks, much better then what we had when I was there. That is awesome you can meet the Index with 1 truck. We had to roll 2, and had a "backup" (LOL!) if needed.

[SRS131EMTFF 471]

Cessna 210 holds 28 gallons of gas???? Wrong. More like between 60 and 70 gallons. Bottom line is the County Airport has a plan in place, approved by the FAA, and the plan was put into place as seen fit by the county, right, wrong, no matter what it was. Sadly, 4 people lost their lives, including 2 young girls. Hopefully as soon as the units realized they were not needed, sadly, they departed back to their respectful districts and did not "stick" around for the sake of "sticking: around or "taking a look". One thing that many need to realize is that the airport response is set and agreed upon with the FAA. They do not do it like others in the emergency services do. It may not be relevant in this case as it is off airport.

A 2 minute google search revealed the Cessna P210N holds a standard of 90 Gallons of Avgas....

[Lucifer 6]

It would probably be prudent for Batt 19 or someone to conduct an AAR to identify shortcomings and to develop/modify SOG's based on lessons learned.

[helicopper 1,050]

Not to start a fight or anything just a serious question that hopefully we can learn from. With this new Trunked system that the county has spent a lot of money on I thought it was to improve interoperability and communications. Chris maybe you can share some knowledge here but I believe it was Batt. 19? was trying to call the county police helicopter to ask for a visual picture and 60 control said that they didn't have the capabilities to communicate. Does the county aviation units have trunked capability? What about other PD agencies? I know that Field Com 1 can patch channels together but that point is mute since they didn't respond right away. Is there any way for ground units to communicate with aviation units prior to FC1's arrival or "grabbing a county police officer"?

The helicopter radio is capable of trunking and we've been working to have it set up properly to communicate on the trunked system. There are some software issues with having the trunking system coexist with our existing UHF system but those are being worked on. I don't consider it an especially big problem because of all the other methods that do allow us to communicate with fire and EMS units.

I'm not sure if you're asking if we can communicate with other PD's or if the PD's have trunking capability. We can communicate with every PD in Westchester County if that was the question.

And to clarify what happened on Saturday, we were told all operations were on Trunked Ops 5 and we informed them that we don't have trunked capabilities. We were never told that the Deputy Coordinator wanted any visual picture. First, we shouldn't be on the same tactical channel as fire suppression (unless we're involved with the fire suppression operation) or other ground ops. Second, we were providing video via downlink to the command post so the visual picture to which you refer was readily available.

Both 60-Control and the coordinators know that we can communicate with them on any of the fire ground channels, the OEM repeater, and a multitude of others so I suspect that there wasn't really all that much of an issue.

Yes, the helicopter can (and often does) communicate with fire and EMS units without the field comm and without "grabbing a county officer". In this case it really wasn't an issue as we were able to talk to a county PD officer who was standing at the command post with both a radio and downlink receiver. Once the field comm showed up they were able to view the video also.

The helicopter radio is even capable of patching different frequencies together if necessary but that is not usually what's requested or even required.

Well, you make a good point. Does Air 2 have have trunking capabilities? I think the helicopter does. I know they were downlinking a video feed to their HQ but I do not know if the link was ever sent to IC or FC1. I heard a lot of radio transmitions from the aviation unit on the WC Police freq (155.310). I believe there was radio contact between Air 2 and the airport sergeant (who was at IC).

Trunking capabilities, yes.

Downlinking was done to a portable receiver at the ICP, the field comm, and our headquarters. If the EOC had been open, they could have viewed it also.

Interoperability does exist and is used on a regular basis. If there was a need for us to communicate with the FD on Saturday it could have been accomplished. We were communicating with the ICP so I'm not aware that there was any issue.

[helicopper 1,050]

Cessna 210 holds 28 gallons of gas???? Wrong. More like between 60 and 70 gallons. Bottom line is the County Airport has a plan in place, approved by the FAA, and the plan was put into place as seen fit by the county, right, wrong, no matter what it was. Sadly, 4 people lost their lives, including 2 young girls. Hopefully as soon as the units realized they were not needed, sadly, they departed back to their respectful districts and did not "stick" around for the sake of "sticking: around or "taking a look". One thing that many need to realize is that the airport response is set and agreed upon with the FAA. They do not do it like others in the emergency services do. It may not be relevant in this case as it is off airport.

The airport does have an approved plan in place but this accident wasn't on the airport property so it really didn't apply. It sounds like the plan was implemented early on but the jurisdictions involved had final authority over the scene, not the county airport.

The airport response and FAA regulations that they're based on have absolutely nothing to do with this tragic accident.

[helicopper 1,050]

The point that was being made, number of gallons notwithstanding, is that this was a fairly routine incident in a unusual vehicle and location. If this was a head-on collision of two cars on Route 120 with four fatalities it would not have garnered this type of response.

There've been several other fatal plane crashes in the region this year. Just out of curiosity, were the upstate responses (Orange and Dutchess Counties) similar or did Westchester send a lot more resources by comparison?

[spin_the_wheel 460]

I believe he compared an odor of gas to a gas main explosion, not a confirmed aircraft down.

Oh I understand what he was trying to get at, the extremes of responses between the same call type. But again this was not the "low end" of an aircraft emergency, was this a 747 down, no, but it also wasnt an aircraft in trouble going down in a field or parking lot with some bumps and bruises for the occupants.

I always go with the when in doubt send more attitude. Even with this rather large response Im sure many of the units just staged and did not get off the rigs. Maybe Im wrong I was not there. Considering this was an almost all volunteer response from the FD side, maybe its a bit more inflated. But Im sure these plans have been gone over and everyone agreed to them at some point. Maybe they have to be modified. JMO be safe all.

[spin_the_wheel 460]

True, but having seen how bad the drills are, this does not make me feel any better.

10 Chiefs

8 Engines

1 Tanker

1 Tower Ladder

1 Rescue

1 ARFF

2 Fire Coordinators

1 Field Comm

Assorted other units.

6 Ambulances

1 Flycar

2 EMS Coordinators

2 Air Units

5 Police Depts

4-5 FD relocations.

10 fire departments (plus PD, & EMS). The airport plan does not send much more to an Airbus 320 with 8,000 gals of fuel.

This plan carries 28 gallons of fuel, the Kensico Reservoir holds 30.6 BILLION Gallons of water. I suspect it gets more fuel in the run off from I-684 which is less than 12 feet from it (yes I know they have a boom set up there). And the plan crashed on land so if it was just a leak it was unlikely to get to the water, but as a great hazmat instructor once told me, its not a hazmat incident if all the product is on fire, its a fire incident.

1st due is one thing, but by the 8th due.........

Once in a career, I think you are being over drimatic.

The Cessna holds a maximum of 6 people and has a 28 gallon fuel tank.

Most mini vans hold 8 people and have a 20-22 gallon fuel tank.

Full size vans carry up to 12 and have up to 40 gallon tanks.

How many responses to a 2 vehicle MVA (with more fuel and people) get this kind of response?

Someone had to agree to this plan at some point. The IC was not calling this stuff on the "fly". I've never been an IC for a aircraft down so I cant speak from experience on this, but I would say more is better, untill you know 100% for sure whats going on, especially with an almost all volunteer response from the fire end of things. If its overkill let the powers to be change things.

If the only thing people can complain about is the fact the IC did not return units in service sooner, I think He did a good job.

As for the once in a career line...maybe over dramatic, but when you consider the "service time" the average volunteer firefighter now gives a Dept. it may just be a once in a career run for them.

Be safe all.

[Bnechis 3,961]

A 2 minute google search revealed the Cessna P210N holds a standard of 90 Gallons of Avgas....

Cessna 210 holds 28 gallons of gas???? Wrong. More like between 60 and 70 gallons.

Isnt the internet grand. I had no idea how much fuel was in it, until I googled it and found 3 different sites that listed 28 gallons. I gues they were wrong. So a single saddle tank leaking/on fire on a truck needs 8 engines?

Bottom line is the County Airport has a plan in place, approved by the FAA, and the plan was put into place as seen fit by the county, right, wrong, no matter what it was. One thing that many need to realize is that the airport response is set and agreed upon with the FAA. They do not do it like others in the emergency services do.

Yes I have read it and commented on it many times. It has evolved, but just because the FAA agreed on it does not even make it an acceptable plan. In past versions the FAA said it was ok, with 18 fire trucks and 1 ambulance responding to a confirmed crash of a commercial airliner....only 1 ambulance ("becuase we do not want to strip communities of EMS"). Another version determined that we would not need EMS because they never came to the planning meetings...oh "We forgot to tell them there were meetings".

Flight 232 in Souix City moved 60+ patients off the field in about an hour. Every drill we have had got stopped 90-120 minutes in with no more than a dozen transported because we were taxing our responders.

[TL2L31 8]

Flight 232 was in an open cornfield on the airport for those not familiar. If 8 engines are staffed with 4 each that's only 32 ffs to operate a fuel fire deep in the woods with rough terrain and no easy road access on a hot summer day. I was at the one 5 years ago and it wasnt easy to get to and was very physically challenging.

[JohnnyOV 2]

Flight 232 was in an open cornfield on the airport for those not familiar. If 8 engines are staffed with 4 each that's only 32 ffs to operate a fuel fire deep in the woods with rough terrain and no easy road access on a hot summer day. I was at the one 5 years ago and it wasnt easy to get to and was very physically challenging.

Open corn field? Try crash landed in Sioux City, Iowa on the active runway after declaring an emergency.

[TL2L31 8]

Let me clarify. It flipped on the runway and ended in the field where survivors walked out of.

[firedude 985]

The Cessna 210 has many different variants of the model, which is why people are coming up with different numbers. The one involved in the crash was a T210N, which holds a total of 88 gallons of usable fuel, 123 gallons if you include a Auxiliary fuel tank. This plane takes Avgas (or 100LL) aviation grade fuel, which is stored in the gas tanks, located in the wings.

There've been several other fatal plane crashes in the region this year. Just out of curiosity, were the upstate responses (Orange and Dutchess Counties) similar or did Westchester send a lot more resources by comparison?

Here are some IAs for past aircraft emergencies

New Hackensack - Airplane Crash - 8/8/10

New Hackensack - Fatal Airplane Crash 11/22/09

New Hampton (Orange) - Mid-Air Crash of Two Small Planes 05-09-11

Edited June 20, 2011 by firedude

[loopy31 12]

First I would like to say that all involved with the response did a great job.

There has been a lot of planning that has gone into the Westchester County Airport Response Plan over the years. The plan has evolved quite a bit since its inception. It is still not perfect, but is always evolving.

The pilot declared an emergency right after takeoff; the plane tried to get back to the airport but obviously didn’t make it.

The airport operations contacted 60 Control and declared a Level 2 Alert. The plan alert categories are based on the type of plane, how many passengers, and how much fuel on board. This Cessna 210 should have been in the Alert level 1 category.

Right from the start, there was a larger response because the wrong alert was made. That being said, the operations staff had no idea where the plane was because it went off radar. So the ICs kept all units coming in until more information was received. There are several businesses and homes in the area surrounding the airport and if the plane had crashed into a structure, that level of response may have been needed.

Reports came in through the security guards at MBIA that the plane was in the woods behind their building. All units were directed towards that address.

Battalion 19 and 2022 set up the IC and the command post. Battalion 11, 2023, 2393, EMS 11, and Port Chester EMS along with firefighters entered the wooded area to see what the wreckage looked like, what resources would be needed, and to determine if there were any survivors. Upon their arrival, there were no survivors found, but there was some significant fire. The wreckage was approximately 1000 ft. into the woods, with some rough terrain. Hose lines weren’t stretched, they decided to use Indian tanks and water cans to extinguish the fire as well as the DES and Hawthorne FD gators with the water pumps. Please note that in this area, there are NO fire hydrants. So having the extra water on the fire apparatus was helpful.

The Westchester County Airport Response plan is for when a plane crashes on the property of the Westchester County Airport. This plan is no longer in effect if the plane crashes offsite. This plane did crash offsite in Armonk FDs district however since the call originally came in as an alert to the airport, the Alert 2 response was welcome until they got a handle on what the situation was.

Once the wreckage was found and the fire was extinguished, most of the apparatus was released fairly quickly. However due to the scene being deep into the woods, and the nature of the weather that day, it was helpful to have the extra manpower at the scene. Maybe all the apparatus wasn’t needed, but most of the manpower and additional water was helpful. EMS remained on scene for Rehab. Harrison EMS provided rehab and did an excellent job.

Now on to why each alert has the level of response it does. The Airport property falls in three separate fire department jurisdictions and three EMS jurisdictions, all departments involved send apparatus to the scene. Armonk FD only sends their tanker and then 2 ambulances because they know there is no need to send additional fire apparatus due to what Purchase FD and Port Chester FD responds with. Port Chester FD responds with their minimum level that is in the agreed upon contract with Rye Brook. That is contractual and cannot be changed without changing their contract. Purchase FD responds with a rescue, engine and ladder. All of which can be needed based whether the plane hits a structure on the airport grounds. When the plan was developed, although the alerts are based on the size of the aircraft, the possibility of that aircraft hitting one of the many structures on the airport grounds (including the terminal) was considered when developing the level of response.

Also, for the comment about additional EMS resources needed to be placed in the plan, on an alert level three there are 6 EMS agencies dispatched as well as their ALS fly cars to the scene. That is a minimum of 10-12 ambulances on initial dispatch. When a crash occurs and an estimated # souls on board is determined, then specific number of EMS task forces will be requested by the IC. A task force consists of either 3 BLS ambulances and 2 ALS ambulances or 5 BLS ambulances a 2 ALS fly cars.

A lot of good airport operations people, experienced firefighters, fire chiefs, emergency mangers, and EMS officials have put a lot of time and effort in making this plan as good as it can be, it has certainly come a very long way since the first plan written. There are some difficulties since it is in three jurisdictions, but all of them do the best that they can to make it work. It is a very unique situation and can criticized over and over again. Until you are responding to an area dealing with multi-jurisdictions (Fire/EMS/Police/Federal/Airport Ops/County), please understand it is not as easy as you think. In this particular case, there was also three police agencies involved, so there were a lot of hands in the pot. But no responders got hurt and everyone went home safe.

Representatives from each agency involved with the airport response meet monthly to continually update the plan. And yes, an AAR will be held to review this event.

Please remember, a plane can fall out of the sky anywhere, is your department ready if it happens in your jurisdiction?

[joetnymedic 43]

as far as the actual emergency declaration goes. The journal news published that the crash radio traffic is available on liveatc.net. this guy was a pilot with over 50 years of flying experience and had done an emergency landing in the past, where all on board walked away, so it's quite obvious that something went drastically wrong that he couldn't make it back to the airport. In the beginning he actually held it together and was really calm on the radio. That's as far as I'm going to go with that. I will say that I listened to quite a bit of radio traffic that day and it sounded (obviously I wasn't there so I'm just going by what I heard) like things were very well run. A good point as to the weather, and terrain, etc was made also. Maybe it was overkill, but I too am of the better to respond with more than you need then have the rigs put back in to service then to respond with less and have to call for additional help. Remember to a degree, if you have to wait for additional manpower and apparatus to arrive, it may slow things down a little bit. I think the main thing here is that this was a very tragic accident and there were 4 people including two kids that lost their lives here. Having worked 45 medic 1 back in the day and knowing the departments that responded, I doubt (at least to a degree) that people stayed out of service to gawk at the site for any extended period of time. People who have not seen a plane crash up close and personal may have stayed for a few minutes, but I doubt anyone came even close to staying until the bodies were offloaded as I'm sure each and every one of us have seen plenty of bodies in our careers. Maybe the policy regarding response to this type of incident needs to be reviewed as I'm sure it will be, but in my honest opinion, you're gonna be damned if you do or damned if you don't in this scenerio. Send too many units out and it's overkill, don't send enough units and you didn't take the situation serious enough. Quite frankly I'd rather be the dispatcher getting my butt chewed for sending too much stuff there. I also think that we all know plenty of people who work 60 Control and know that they are some of the most professional and well trained dispatch staff out there.

[JohnnyOV 2]

Coming from a small background in Flight Ops when I went to school... Why is Westchester County the only airport that I know of, to list the Alert as the number of souls aboard the craft? Normally the Alert is defined in the FAR's (which is the governing body of flight rules, like OSHA is for safety) as:

Alert 1 - Plane is in the air reporting an emergency - crash is possible i.e. systems still functional, yet experiencing an minor emergency - stand by in quarters (or at the entrance to the field)

Alert 2 - Plane is in the air reporting an emergency - crash is probable i.e. loss of system powers, major system failure - respond and stand-by at the runway

Alert 3 - Crash has, or will definitely occur either at or in close proximity to the airport

Levels are to identify the response based off of souls. If my memory serves me correctly:

Level 1 is 1-2 souls

Level 2 is 3-10

Level 3 is 11-20 (or 25 i cannot remember)

Level 4 is ? - 50

Level 5 is 51+

Shouldn't the dispatch information come across as Alert 3, level 2, instead of Alert Level 2 which it was dispatched as? Since I come from both sides of the house, flight and emergency response, I'm just trying to figure out (and I'm not criticizing anyone) when 60-control dispatches an Alert Level 2, are they giving the information in red or green out?

[MELILLO719 30]

I Don't understand why the amount of apparatus their was such a problem. Every member on those trucks that showed up did something no one stood around everyone had a job to do whether it was filling up the Indian pack or rehab or carrying tools in etc.... anyone on scene would tell you that everyone had something to do. Not to mention the hike in there and back out was a little difficult, maybe it's just me but i thought everything went pretty good considering alot of factors. To all the department's their they did an excellent job.