From DMM Student Scott Glazer

LaGuardia airport held its mandated disaster exercise on Saturday 9/12. Operation SADD (Simulated aircraft disaster drill) simulated 2 aircraft colliding at the intersection of 2 runways – one landing (737) and one taking off (smaller regional jet). The 737 ended up in a remote corner of the airport (perfect location for an exercise) and the RJ crashed into flushing bay between the airport and Rikers Island.

We had 154 volunteer victims, mostly boy scouts and explorer scouts, all managed by our volunteer coordinator who is an FBI agent. We added 40 dummies to the water to simulate victims and for a recovery operation. Delta allowed us to utilize an aircraft as a prop for the land based MCI drill.

The drill began with the crash and we had a burn pit that we lit up to simulate the ensuing fire. As this was extinguished by arriving port authority police ARFF trucks, an extrication scenario was begun with 3 old prisoner transport buses donated by NYC corrections. These buses simulated sections of the fuselage (we asked for aircraft donations but no takers) and Port authority police, NYPD and NYC Corrections units begun cutting and extricating from the buses. We then moved into the MCI portion with the victims (all moulaged with descriptive tags) either lying on tarps or walking around the aircraft… The water segment was also underway with marine assets from the Port Authority Police, NYPD, FDNY, NYC Corrections and the National Guard participating in recovery with a casualty collection point established at our police dock, with FDNY EMS and the ME's office responding to evaluate the victims recovered.

All of the victims were triaged, treated and transported (to a simulated hospital in the ARFF garage) while FDNY established large diameter hose relays to the ARFF trucks and assisted with patient moving. NYC Corrections and National Guard mobilized and also assisted with patient movement and scene security. US Coast Guard established a virtual water command in a mobile command vehicle as the water rescue branch and coordinated boats. Unfortunately, due to the weather, only 1 helicopter asset arrived, the port authority police helicopter but was only on scene about an hour.

If that wasn't enough, we placed several of the deceased victims near the aircraft to simulate a recovery in the near future, after the rescue segment was concluded, so the ME's office could utilize their high tech mapping, investigatory and ID equipment. The airline was present to simulate the obtaining of the manifest and airline resources. Although the family assistance plan was mentioned as activated, we had enough on our plate for the exercise and that was notional.

Overall, it went well, with each agency practicing their response to an aircraft incident and their own internal protocols. As usual, the issues raided were; communications, better visibility of the CP, too many vehicles and CP vehicles at the CP with generators drowning out voice comms, and media relations.