Plane on fire from mock crash at Tweed New Haven Airport runway.
A driver fleeing from the cops crashed his car through Gate 23 and sped down the runway. Five New Haven cops tore down the track in their cruisers chasing the car. Then the fleeing driver crashed into an airplane that was getting ready for takeoff.
That “happened” Wednesday at Tweed New Haven Airport.
Courtney Luciana photo
The airplane immediately burst into flames. A team of 50 firefighters rushed to the scene minutes later to put out the blaze and save the 20 passengers on board.
“Are they dead?” one New Haven firefighter asked a fellow crew member about the passengers.
“Yes. Now we have three passengers that are dead,” the other firefighter confirmed.
Sirens rung across the entire distance of the runway. Through a heavy cloud of smoke and pouring rain, emergency medical techs attended to each person laid out on the ground suffering from the explosion of the blaze. Seventeen passengers were transported to Yale New Haven Hospital.
Emergency response teams used the triage tag system to organize and determine the condition of each passenger for the mass casualty. Out of that group 10 people were marked with a red tag meaning in extremely critical condition. Five were tagged yellow which are in moderate shape.
This all took place at Tweed New Haven — but only as a simulation, not for real.
The occasion was airport staff’s triennial emergency response exercise with the New Haven police and fire departments, city Office and Emergency Management, AMR ambulance company, the FBI, and state police.
Tweed Executive Director Sean Scanlon said the training practiced on Wednesday was a recreation of a police chase that occurred last year. They added the part about the driver crashing into the airplane.
“We’re simulating that the person crashed into the plane, which is something that could have happened that day, but thankfully didn’t,” Scanlon said. “We want to always want to prepare for the worst and hope for the best.”
Adashi FirstResponse MDT system.
Rescue teams tracked and documented all field operations using the Adashi FirstResponse MDT. Each of the command staff was given a tablet equipped with a preloaded action journal to track strategic benchmarks throughout the incident and assign resources accordingly.
Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Wednesday’s exercise used mannequins instead of humans. EMS techs still delivered the “victims” to the hospital.
“Our job is to save the most amount of lives possible,” said EMS Supervisor Dan Sullivan. “We have to triage most likely survivability to the least in the process. One of the biggest complications is managing all of your resources at once and having that real life factor. This was a controlled environment today and with training we try to make them as realistic as possible, but obviously controlled elements don’t exist in a real incident.”
Fire Chief Alston with Emergency Operations chief Fontana.
Fire Chief John Alston said the multi-agency coordinated exercises, planned months in advance, are essential for the city.
“You want to make sure that you know the people that you’re going to be responding with,” Alston said. “If you know them by first name, face, or recognize their voice on the phone. That makes a complete difference when showing up to a mass casualty and knowing who the players are.”
After the drill, Alston said that there weren’t any major complications. Only minor glitches.
“We’re doing this now to make sure that we’re all on the same channel,” Alston said. “Making sure that everyone has their briefings before they respond. There are things that we know behind the scenes that we know that we need to tweak to ensure efficiency and reduce duplication of effort.”
Police Lt. Jason Rentkowicz said that along with participants wearing their masks Wednesday, tactics for capturing the driver in the exercise was amended to adhere Covid-19 regulations.
“We avoided hands on tactics when taking the driver into custody,” Rentkowicz said. “Everything that would involve putting your hands on someone, like tacking or handcuffing and getting within Covid range, was avoided. The training for first responders never stops so you have to take safety measures into play.”
Each ambulance had five “patients” on board during the drill due to guideline restrictions. Normally, there’s a 1:1 ratio, one being in critical condition and one less critical.
Yale New Haven Hospital’s SHARP Team, a physician response unit, assisted with direct medical care and operations for the EMS side. Mark Roland, an attending physician at YNHH, said that learning how to respond to an emergency amid the pandemic made a difference.
“The Covid pandemic has made this protocol change slightly,” Mark Roland said. “When we got here we weren’t sure exactly sure how this was going to work out but it’s good that we practiced because now we understand how we will be coordinating if an emergency were to occur.”
City Director of Emergency Operations Rick Fontana said that the multi-coordination and collaboration between city agencies and external partners serve to remind the public that Tweed New Haven Airport is a small, regional airport that is well protected and safe to travel in and out of.
“We identify any weaknesses and make the corrections. The bottom line is when you do these practices, it brings everything all back to understanding what needs to be done,” Fontana said. “When that alert tone goes off and it says an aircraft incident, you’re in a totally different frame of mind.”
