Aircraft Mishap Recovery - Essay Example

Examples are the Pago-Pago mishap of 1974, and the Quincy, IL, runway collision in November 1996. The airport had no Aircraft Rescue & Fire Fighting (ARFF) services and was not obligatory to do so. However, the NTSB stated that "contributing to the . loss of life were the lack of adequate aircraft rescue and fire fighting services.." The advantage of having good and qualified ARFF units on-site in less than two minutes became even evident in an earlier accident at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX).

On March 1, 1978, a Continental Airlines DC-10 collapsed during take-off as a result of blown tires and the consequent failure of the landing gear. The plane carried 198 people and 81,000 gallons of Jet-A fuel. No less than 10,000 gallons of kerosene spilled and caught fire immediately, engulfing the fuselage in flames and deadly smoke. The airport fire units encountered people outside the plane on fire and many still caught inside the blazing jet. The first ARFF crash truck was on-scene and in foam operation within 90 seconds of the first alarm.

Total extinguishment of the huge fire was done only six minutes after the crash. Ultimately, three people had died, however 195 others survived, 43 with injuries. Inside the fence lies the main jurisdiction of the airport and its fire and rescue services, required by Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulations. They should be expected to be trained, prepared, manned and prepared to deal appropriately with an accident situation during the very first minutes. Yet, the success or failure of ARFF in a major crash depends on resourceful assistance from outside sources.

Support is required from local fire, EMS, and other emergency departments for water supply, providing personnel and equipment for rescue operations, triaging, treating and transporting injured victims to suitable hospitals, comprising and securing survivors and human remains, scene and access control, etc. Responding emergency departments need to understand the characteristics and their rules and responsibilities in an airplane crash. In the initial response and confusion stage the objectives are: Communicate all requirements and assignments,Organize all resources, Control all activities, through a single contact and control procedure called Incident Command System (ICS).

Local/Community Emergency Response ARFF services are essential and should be expected to cope with the details of a crashed aircraft. Emergency management agencies, fire, rescue, EMS, and law enforcement departments of local communities usually have neither the experience nor the knowledge required. If an airplane crashes in a community, local emergency services are the first to act in response. They might not have the training or