THUNDER BAY – A mock emergency played out Thursday on a runway at Thunder Bay International Airport.
The exercise, mandated under federal regulations, was conducted to test the preparedness and communications ability of airport crews, pilots and the city’s emergency services, an effort to ensure all are on the same page should a real incident occur.
Ed Schmidtke, president and CEO of the Thunder Bay International Airports Authority, said practice makes perfect.
“When these sorts of incidents unfold, seconds matter in the saving of lives,” Schmidtke said. “We’re getting roles and responsibilities right matter to ensure that we’re responding instead of tripping over each other.
“We’re doing what we need to do and that is making people safe.”
Live tests must be conducted every four years. In between the different agencies conduct tabletop exercises to stay sharp.
Thursday’s mock incident involved an unruly passenger on a Winnipeg to Thunder Bay flight who breached the cockpit.
Emergency crews responded as they would if the situation was real, formed a perimeter near the plane, which in the exercise had landed on its belly, the landing gear not properly functioning.
“This event has been months in the planning,” said the airport’s Ryan Brading, who helped co-ordinate and put together the simulation.
“We did a lot of work.”
Schmidtke said it’s tough to predict what the future might hold, so it makes sense to be ready for just about anything.
“People have done some unfortunate things on aircrafts and our key is to put some sort of scenario together that practices a really unfortunate event,” he said.
The test came a little more than a year after a WestJet flight from Vancouver to Ottawa was diverted because of a threat to the aircraft. The plane sat isolated on a runway overnight before departing the following afternoon.
Passengers were not affected by the exercise, which took place on an out-of-the-way runway adjacent to the MNR Fire Centre.
