Crews get hands-on training

The first call sounded over the airwaves from the air control tower: In-flight emergency involving an F-27 aircraft with 62 souls on board.

The second call confirmed the worst: The plane crash-landed on the east side of the Spokane International Airport. All units respond.

This was the scenario as it was played out Tuesday night during a “mass-casualty incident response,” a training exercise for emergency first-responders. They practiced responding to a crash, setting up a command structure, and beginning triage on the wounded.

“We want this to be as real as possible,” said Bruce Millsap, chief of the Spokane International Airport Fire Department. “The emphasis is about saving lives.”

The training exercises – involving the airport fire department, Spokane County fire districts 3 and 10, and two ambulance crews from American Medical Response – are required by the FAA every three years under the airport’s operating license. On the off-years, the agencies get together for tabletop exercises in which they talk about what they would do in different scenarios.

Tuesday was all hands-on.

Smoke bombs were set off around the F-27 cargo plane, donated for the training effort by Empire Airlines.

Volunteers from SCOPE, or Sheriff’s Community Oriented Policing Effort, pretended to be victims.

Some ran around screaming. Some lay on the ground next to fake limbs. Some played dead. Others were “trapped” inside the plane.

Emergency personnel scurried around, evaluating the wounded.

A triage tag was placed around each patient’s neck, indicating whether they were “walking wounded” with minor injuries, injured but not critical, in need of immediate attention – or headed for the morgue.

Those participating in the exercise were not told ahead of time what was going on.

They weren’t told how many patients they would be or the size of the plane.

“That helps keep it real,” said Ralph Walter, division chief of training at Fire District 10.

The agencies have been working for three months to put it together.

“There are hundreds of little details,” Millsap said.

In previous years, live exercises have included scenarios including biological weapons and hazmat response.

“We had one where a plane went down due to wind sheer and we had to get all the vehicles on the field, and shut down roads,” said Todd Woodard, Spokane airport spokesman. “I think it’s really good to go through the processes and procedures, to make sure they do everything right, in the awful event that something does happen.”

The agencies will get together to talk about what they did right, what they did wrong, and what they could do better.

Spokane International Airport has never had an accident with mass casualties.

“Hopefully there will never be one,” Millsap said. “But we’ll be prepared for it.”