By Sarah C. Johnson
Hickory Daily Record
HICKORY, N.C. — Firefighters and emergency responders from Hickory and surrounding areas gathered at Hickory Regional Airport to train in a simulated airplane crash last week.
The training, held March 26, was meant to imitate an emergency that could happen at an airport the size of Hickory Regional Airport. The simulation involved a plane carrying 20 people that had to make an emergency landing resulting in a crash, Hickory Regional Airport Director Chad Hunsucker said.
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Hickory Regional Airport first opened in May 1940 as Hickory Municipal Airport. It was built in 1937 for $500,000, according to the city’s website.
Multiple times throughout the history of Hickory Regional Airport, there were commercial flights to nearby states and cities. The last commercial flights stopped in 2005. Since then, Hickory Regional Airport has been a general aviation airport, according to the city’s website.
On average, there are 80 aircraft arrivals and departures from Hickory Regional Airport daily. More than 100 aircraft are housed at the airport, Hickory Senior Communications Specialist Sarah Killian said.
The Federal Aviation Administration defines general aviation airports as “public-use airports that do not have scheduled service or have less than 2,500 annual passenger boardings.”
Hunsucker said the training was part of periodical requirements by the Federal Aviation Administration. The training also helped the on-site firefighters stationed at the airport to experience a real-world scenario.
“We don’t always get to practice with multiple agencies on an actual scenario,” Hickory Fire Marshal Stephen Craig said. “So, it gives us a chance to come together and put it all into one piece. Make sure that we all have good communication, we have everything that we need and work together in those groups.”
This region saw a deadly plane crash at the Statesville Regional Airport in December. The crash killed seven people, including NASCAR driver Greg Biffle. The plane crashed while attempting an apparent emergency landing shortly after takeoff.
What happens during critical situations?
“We tried to make it (the training) realistic to something that could actually occur at Hickory,” Hunsucker said about the simulation. “An aircraft with 20 passengers, 20 crew and passengers, on board experienced an engine issue, which subsequently caused the pilot to have to make a crash landing, and a small fire ensued. We had to practice triage for multiple levels of injuries with some of the passengers on board.”
Hunsucker said Hickory is the only airport in the surrounding around, aside from Charlotte-Douglas International Airport and Concord-Padgett Regional Airport, with a fire station on-site. The are three full-time firefighters dedicated to the station who are trained in aircraft rescue and firefighting, Craig said.
When an emergency happens, the first line of contact is the control tower. The control tower dispatches the firefighters at Station 4, the airport station, to the scene, Craig said.
This was the first step in the simulation. From there, the crash escalated to need more fire personnel and medical responders, Hunsucker said.
“The second part of the exercise was an escalation,” Hunsucker said. “So, it goes from we’ve got an aircraft that has an issue to an actual crash on the airfield. So that’s an escalation of services. That’s when we wanted to test multiple agencies responding to the airport. The on-site firefighters, they take over initial efforts, and then you’ve got ( Hickory Fire Department ) Station 3 shows up, you’ve got Long View shows up, EMS shows up.”
Hunsucker said on the administrative side, the airport tested its notification systems, went over what agencies to call, such as the Federal Aviation Administration, and how to handle media and releasing information to the public.
Craig said additional firefighters from Hickory, Long View and other areas, along with emergency medical services from Catawba and Burke counties, were stationed at the L.P. Frans Stadium awaiting the training call to respond.
“We had a time sheet made up that said, ‘It should take this unit roughly X amount of minutes from dispatch to arrive at the airport,’” Craig said. “For an example, engine three should be able to be here in three and a half minutes, roughly four, so we held them for three minutes at the Crawdads (stadium) after the dispatch and then allowed them to respond in.”
Craig said the response times were estimated and depending on the time of day and traffic in the area, response times in real life will vary.
“At the end, once we checked off that all patients had been treated and transported off the site, we checked to make sure that the airport administration had made all the notifications they were supposed to, (N.C. State) Highway Patrol had done their notifications,” Craig said. “Basically, check that everyone had completed all the tasks that they should have completed.”
The training ended with a debriefing to go over what went well and what could be improved in the future.
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