Airport undergoes emergency exercise
Owen Roberts International Airport
(CNS): The Cayman Islands Airports Authority (CIAA) conducted a partial emergency exercise last week on a grassy area alongside the runway at Owen Roberts International Airport. Normal airport activities were not disrupted.
The exercises tested response time to a simulated aircraft accident by the Airport Rescue and Fire Fighting Service, as well as CIAA’s readiness to respond to an emergency situation. In addition to dealing with any accident, CIAA’s role is to assist with setting up an incident command post where emergency responders will effect command and control of life-saving activities.
Other entities taking part in the exercise included representatives from the RCIPS; CIAA air traffic control; security, safety, operations, customer and commercial services divisions at the airport; and Hazard Management Cayman Islands. There were also representatives from one of the major airlines as well as its ground-handling company.
“Such exercises are vital to fine-tune emergency-response management at the airport,” said Andrew McLaughlin, CIAA chief safety officer. He was speaking from the Airport Emergency Operations Centre, where participants could view the whole exercise on the airport runway in real time on CCTV.
The authority’s airport emergency plan is being updated and over the next few months the CIAA and its emergency-response partners will be conducting more partial exercises along with tabletop sessions to test suggested improvements to the plan.
Category: Airport
