NSW: Emergency crews test disaster response at Sydney airport
18 Nov 2008 12:46 PMBy Karen Davis
SYDNEY, Nov 18 AAP - Clouds of black smoke billowed into the sky above Sydney Airport as dozens of fire engines screamed to a stop beside burning wreckage during a simulated plane crash.
Tuesday's elaborate exercise was designed to test the multi-agency responseto an emergency at one of Australia's busiest airports.
Almost 1,000 police, emergency services and government agency personnel took part in Exercise Graphite, testing their response to the simulated crash of Dangle Airways Flight 110.
According to the scenario, flight 110 took off from Sydney en route to London via Singapore with 260 passengers and 10 crew on board.
The emergency response plan was activated when the fictional plane experienced a hydraulic system failure in flight and the crew indicated it would return to the airport.
Flight 110 "crashed" on landing, leaving wreckage strewn across runway 07.
The east-west runway is in limited use because of a capital works program and was closed for the exercise.
A shipping container stood in as the wrecked body of the plane and burning hay bales were used to represent debris and generate the smoke.
Dozens of fire trucks, police vehicles and a mobile command centre rushed onto the runway as people acting as survivors filed out of the shipping container.
NSW Police Minister Tony Kelly said Exercise Graphite, which did not disrupt normal domestic airport operations, had gone well.
"We all hope that our emergency services never have to respond to a real life situation like the one being played out in today's exercise," he said.
"But if they do, then it's exercises like this one that will make sure they're well prepared."
The exercise was used to test and evaluate aspects of tactical response, including command and control, disaster victim registration and the activation of Airport Local Emergency Operations.
Mr Kelly said the exercise allowed the emergency response to be fine-tuned.
"The sort of decisions emergency services personnel make today, the way they work together with other agencies and the lessons they learn could mean the difference between life and death in a real crisis situation," he said.
Sydney Airport handles more than 32 million passengers a year and is used by 38 international airlines and six domestic airlines.
There were 286,000 aircraft movements at the facility in 2007.
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