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Columbus Metro Airport Stage Full Scale Drill

Maria Jones

Story Created: Sep 22, 2009 at 3:18 PM CDT

Story Updated: Sep 22, 2009 at 8:27 PM CDT

About an hour after the “West Georgia Honor Flight” took off from the Columbus Regional Airport. There was a plane crash but it was all part of a drill administered by the FAA. The stage was set and scenario in place. “Right now all we know is we have an MD-80 with approximately 145 souls is what we believe was on the aircraft,” Public Safety Director, Chief Jeffery Wright explained. Officials tell us the flight originated in Florida and was headed to Atlanta before the crash. Pilots were attempting to stop in Macon but were forced to make an emergency landing in Columbus due to mechanical issues. “It was coming in fell short of our main runway out here on six as you can see this is were it ended up out here,” Wright added. And they were ready to respond by using all forms of communication throughout the process. “Were checking radio communications were checking incident command, were checking our triage system and were also working with our hospitals today making sure that we can transmit information back and forth,” Riley Land, Deputy Director/EMS said. During the response, many of the victims with non-life threatening injuries were lead from the scene. Each one checked by Emergency Medical Services at a triage station depending on their injuries. But if this were the real thing everyone may not be so fortunate. Muscogee County Coroner Bill Thrower told News 38, “There are people here to take care of those that are just casualties with different types of injuries and then are part of course being to deal with the death side of it. To take care of those persons and their families and do everything we can.” Although drills like this are staged officials say it gives the airport and all the entities involved the opportunity to enhance their skills. “And this is one effort on our part to ensure that were able to respond efficiently and to handle a large number of patients,” Land stated.

Airport officials say they practice monthly to prepare for situations such as this. And it gave Columbus Technical College students who were playing ‘victims’ in this case a chance to evaluate themselves. CTC Participant/Cynthia DuPont said, “At some point they may be working in emergency rooms where they have to deal with some of these situations.” Officials will be graded on today’s drill. We will let you know how they faired, if the results are made public. Airport officials train monthly for emergency response.