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Various local agencies will be responding to a simulated plane crash as part of a planned exercise the evening of Aug. 11 at the Rhinelander-Oneida County Airport, according to County Emergency Management Director Ken Kortenhof.
Representatives from law enforcement agencies, fire departments, emergency management, ambulance squads, the medical examiner’s office, the airport, airlines, the Red Cross, emergency communications entities, etc. were on hand Wednesday night in the County’s Law Enforcement Center to plan for how to respond to the airport drill.
Kortenhof led the participants through a “tabletop” exercise related to what each responding agency would be doing following the report of a plane crash. He described what the drill will simulate with a plane containing 32 passengers and three crew members crash-landing at the airport.
“Upon impact, the aircraft skidded on the runway, broke apart, caused numerous small fires, and the main section of the aircraft remained intact, but was severely damaged,” he said. “So that’s what we’re dealing with.”
Kortenhof said the airport drill will involve a crash in which there are fatalities and injuries of varying severity.
The tabletop exercise involved planning as to which agencies would arrive on the scene in what sequence to handle various tasks and how the response would be coordinated.
“It always seems to be the problem that we have, so far, is communications,” Kortenhof said. “Since our last drill that we did at the airport, I think we’ve come a long way with communications as far as the statewide mutual aid channels and stuff like that, so hopefully we’re going to be a little more successful.”
Representatives from the various agencies that will be participating in the airport drill have plotted out their courses of action, such as putting out the fires, taking care of the injured and transporting them to area hospitals, blocking off the general public’s access to the airport following the crash, dealing with friends and family members who had been waiting for passengers, notifying the media, etc.
Besides having enough resources available to respond to a plane crash at the airport, Kortenhof said the planning leading up to the drill has also included mapping the capabilities of local agencies to be able to respond to another incident.
“We have the resources pegged out as little wooden pegs, and as they move their resources around and respond to (the plane crash), we want to be able to take a big shot picture of the rest of the county and see if we can respond to anything else while we have this big incident going on,” he said.
Kortenhof said grant money has been obtained for the airport drill to help reimburse participants, such as First Responders.
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