Westchester County Airport Biannual Drill

[dwcfireman 656]

For those of you who are unaware, the biannual MCI drill at the Westchester County Airport is being held on Saturday May 7, 2016.  This is a cool two months away, so if any of your departments have been invited, I strongly encourage you to take part in the drill.  It is definitely a learning experience, and it is also a long day.  So, if you are coming, be prepared to be outside for a long period of time (And please pay attention to the weather.  Dress for the temperature and precipitation, and STAY HYDRATED!).

 

Now that my general announcement is out of the way, let's get into some questions...  I've been with the airport for eight years now, and I've had the pleasure to meet many people from different of backgrounds that do respond to the airport under the airport's emergency response plan for aircraft emergencies.  I'm starting this thread to try to get a handle on various responders' knowledge of airport and aircraft familiarity, as well as their respective roles when they respond to the airport for an emergency.

 

How many of you out there have any type of aircraft rescue firefighter (ARFF) training?  Is there anyone out there that has a good understanding of the airfield layout (taxiways, runways, ramps, etc.)?  How well do you know aircraft?  What is role when you do respond (other than sit in the staging area)?

 

I would also like to use this thread to answer any questions anyone may have about the emergency response plan and what is supposed to happen during an aircraft emergency.  And, NO, I don't have any insider information of what the drill scenario is going to be (haha).

[dwcfireman 656]

6 hours ago, EmsFirePolice said:

I thought this drill was held every other year? 

 

Biannual can mean twice per year OR once every two years/every other year (the English language is funny like that).  Essentially, it's the live exercise on even years, and a table top on odd years.

[Flashpoint 94]

How are the ARFF trucks staffed, and who staffs them? What kind of training do they have, and do they train regularly with the agencies that respond to the airport?

[dwcfireman 656]

2 hours ago, Flashpoint said:

How are the ARFF trucks staffed, and who staffs them? What kind of training do they have, and do they train regularly with the agencies that respond to the airport?

 

We have two Oshkosh Striker 4X4's and a Chevy Tahoe that are staffed by the Airport Operations Department.  The Tahoe (Airport 1/2951) is staffed by the airport operations supervisor who establishes Airport Command and is the incident commander until it's transferred to a mutual aid chief.   The strikers (Airport 7 and 11) are staffed by a minimum of two airport operations coordinators, so one in each truck.  During the weekdays we have additional staffing, so you'll see two in each truck.  Our job is the initial containment of the fire and to assist victims with evacuation from the aircraft.  Once mutual aid is on scene with us, we become the technical advisers for the strike teams operating in and around the aircraft.

 

As for training, I'll preface this by stating that we only do ARFF; We don't do any structural firefighting at the airport (but we will take care of car fires and brush fires on the field).  We are all certified by FAA standards to be ARFF personnel (IMO that's definitely not enough training).  Some have been to FAA approved 40 hours basic ARFF classes, and few have been to the advanced classes.  So, overall, there isn't a lot of initial hands on fire training (mostly because NYS is a home rule state and we can get away with meeting the FAA minimums).  There are a few of us that are or have been volunteer firefighters, so we do bring a lot of experience and knowledge to the table, and everybody learns from us who do have real experience.  The operations department does meet monthly to conduct re-certification training in the 11 ARFF areas that we need to train in, and we also throw in extracurricular classes such as first aid, CPR, incident command, and general OSHA training.

 

We do train with some of the responding agencies.  Again, IMO we don't train with them enough, especially since we only tend to conduct nursing drills feed the ARFF trucks.  I would love to see more training with all of the responding agencies in all of the aspects of the emergency response plan like handline work, aircraft extrication, triage, airport familiarization, etc.  So, tell your chief that you want to train at the airport more and do more than just flow water to a giant masterstream on wheel! haha

[DR104 141]

Any time you can train and do any type of an multiple agencies drill  is a good thing.  In all reality,  how many of these agencies will be able to send FULL  crews and apparatus  in a timely matter in a case of a major incident? Astorino  wants to add more flights(People) in and out of the airport, if he gets his way  will this have any change in response or the drill itself?

[dwcfireman 656]

5 hours ago, DR104 said:

Any time you can train and do any type of an multiple agencies drill  is a good thing.  In all reality,  how many of these agencies will be able to send FULL  crews and apparatus  in a timely matter in a case of a major incident? Astorino  wants to add more flights(People) in and out of the airport, if he gets his way  will this have any change in response or the drill itself?

 

Well, considering an alert could happen at any time, including in the middle of a weekday when a lot of volunteers are at work, we're probably not going to get full crews on fire apparatus.  However, the airport and the county have worked together to adjust for that.  Example:  Engine 1 responds with 4 firefighters (including the driver), E2 with 3, and E3 with 5.  That's 3 engines with 12 firefighters (3 being drivers).  Since an aircraft accident requires more manpower than it does equipment, we'll take the 2 firefighters from E2 and throw them on E1 so we can have an engine with a full crew on the field.  E3 has a full crew so they can come to the field, too.  This means that E2 and it's driver will remain at the staging area, waiting for its crew to return at the end of the accident.  This also doubles as a safety and security measure by limiting the number of vehicles on the field while also keeping the accident site unclogged of unnecessary apparatus.

 

Astorino doesn't necessarily want to add more flights.  He has plans to expand the airport and commercial service to include more of the larger aircraft, reduce the number of smaller, noisier aircraft, and make commercial passenger service more flexible.  With that said, even if the airport gets a longer runway and/or adds more flights, the airfield will always remain a Design Group III airport under the Airport Reference Code.  Group III restricts the wingspan of aircraft up to (but not including) 118 feet.  Essentially, the airport is designed to handle a Boeing 737 or Airbus A320 at the largest, and we will never see larger aircraft than that.  With that said, we will also never see a passenger load on an aircraft more than 155 (including crew members).  So, the need to change the response is not necessary, including the fact that the airport will never have to change its ARFF index, either.