Two Kaua‘i Police Department patrol cars blocked access roads to the Lihu‘e Airport runway yesterday morning. The resident seaplane was no longer stashed away on a runway removed from normal airport traffic. A group of high school students stood around
Two Kaua‘i Police Department patrol cars blocked access roads to the Lihu‘e Airport runway yesterday morning.
The resident seaplane was no longer stashed away on a runway removed from normal airport traffic.
A group of high school students stood around a light pole.
These were some of the players in an unfolding Federal Aviation Agency airport certification exercise.
“The certification is required by Federal law of all Class I airports at least once for each consecutive 36 months the airport is in operation,” said Mack Humphrey, an FAA Airport Certification safety inspector.
Humphrey was one of several inspectors on hand to evaluate the response of Lihu‘e Airport and community organizations in the event of a large-scale emergency situation.
“The airport must have a full-scale exercise so the airport can exercise and evaluate their emergency plan,” Humphrey said. “This exercise can be a simulated natural disaster or an airport accident to show the airport crews are capable of handling an emergency.”
For the Friday exercise, the seaplane represented a crashed plane. The scene wasn’t pretty. Numerous casualties littered the runway. Three were dead and many more were wounded.
“The exercise is designed to show response by mutual aid, or off-airport emergency teams, as well as airport tenants,” Humphrey said. “In an emergency, we become one big family where everyone has a part.”
Several officials were in place prior to the start of the scenario, and most responding agencies had their routines down before the emergency call was made.
Within three minutes of the call, three Lihu‘e Airport Crash Fire units responded, sirens blazing. Two tankers spewed forth geysers of water as they approached the stricken plane.
“In a normal plane crash, the body of the plane would be broken into pieces and some of the victims would be trapped inside,” an official monitoring the drill said, watching fire crews respond in full gear that shimmered in the morning sun.
“The crash firefighters’ job would be to make the area safe from fire and try to extricate passengers as quickly as possible.”
With the blaze doused, police blocked off the access road, blue lights flashing atop patrol cars. An ambulance appeared on scene within eight minutes of the initial call.
Paramedics assumed “Triage” and “EMS Command” roles, assessing and prioritizing injuries.
As vehicles from the Lihu‘e station of the Fire Department rolled onto the tarmac, their leaders donned vests marking them either “Operations” or “Safety” officer while firefighters helped remove victims from the wreckage.
Another ambulance transported the first of the “most critical” injuries to Wilcox Hospital for treatment.
“We practice to get perfect,” Humphrey said. “We also practice to find problems so we can correct them and be ready for the real thing.”
Personnel from various emergency-response teams unloaded stretcher boards from the Department of Transportation, Airports Division’s trailer, which arrived on scene shortly after the crash.
Initial reports had 16 passengers on board with five “walking wounded,” three dead and four critically injured.
County crews and state airport agents worked side-by-side assigning victims to different holding areas in the grass off the runway.
Lihu‘e Crash Fire Chief Gary Smith said there were a lot of other things happening beyond the actual crash site.
Officials activated a Civil Defense Emergency Operating Center, where a county bus was dispatched to help transport victims.
The airport’s maintenance department was called on to help transport critically wounded patients aboard one of their pickup trucks. Others with less severe injuries were trucked aboard a maintenance flatbed to the commuter terminal for further treatment and observation.
Most of the activity surrounding the crashed plane had died down within about an hour, but Smith said the exercise goes on long after the initial response.
Once the crash site was secure, American Red Cross and county Community Emergency Response Team members monitored the vital signs of all emergency personnel, and made sure everyone was properly hydrated.
Despite the recreated tragedy, Major Victor Aguilar — chaperone for the Waimea High J.R.O.T.C. cadets who posed as victims — said things might be looking up.
“It seems like we were out there longer,” he said of previous years’ exercises.
In the end, he said, the drill could be just as valuable for his kids.
“It’s always good experience for the students.”
• Dennis Fujimoto, photographer and staff writer, can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 253) or dfujimoto@kauaipubco.com.
