Here's how Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport first responders train for aviation emergencies
Plumes of greenish smoke engulfed a runway at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport on Wednesday evening after a lithium battery in an airplane's cargo bin exploded.
First responders with the Phoenix fire, police and aviation departments arrived on the scene, assessed conditions to put out the fire and rescued injured passengers.
Fortunately, this was not a real emergency. It was a training drill. Even the smoke wasn't real — it was pepper fog.
Sky Harbor Airport conducted a full-scale emergency drill on Wednesday, Oct. 25, its first full-scale drill since 2017. A 2020 emergency exercise was smaller in scale because of COVID-19 pandemic restrictions.
Airport staff trained with the city's aviation, fire and police departments, several airlines and other agencies to test emergency procedures and determine their effectiveness in managing incidents at the airport. The plan: Treat the drill like it was a real emergency.
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What did the Phoenix airport emergency drill involve?
The exercise simulated an emergency involving a lithium battery that exploded and caught fire in the cargo bin of a plane during its descent upon arriving from Cancun, Mexico.
The fire spread to other bags in the cargo bin and damaged flight controls. As this happened, the captain of the plane called into Sky Harbor's air traffic control tower to report an in-flight emergency.
The plane made it to the airport but crashed upon landing.
Volunteers — there were 173 — portrayed dead and injured passengers. The training also used dummies to depict dead passengers.
Fire trucks, ambulances, police cars and aviation department vehicles rushed to the crash site as the first billows of smoke sifted through the air. First responders put out the fire, treated injured victims and took them to a makeshift hospital in a vehicle assembly building.
How was this drill different from past years?
The drill began at 6 p.m. and continued until 9 p.m. Prior emergency training exercises took place during daytime hours. Training in the evening reflected that incidents could happen at any time, airport spokeswoman Heather Shelbrack said.
"We don't just have emergencies during normal business hours," she said.
Using a scenario that involved an international flight was a new element in the training, airport spokeswoman Tamra Ingersoll said.
They had to consider that Customs and Border Protection would have a role in the process, including triage, fire rescue, treatment and transporting victims, since passengers in such an emergency would not have cleared U.S. customs yet, she said. That happens at the arrival airport, not the departure airport.
Why does the Phoenix airport do emergency training?
Federal Aviation Administration rules require airports like Sky Harbor to conduct a full-scale disaster drill every three years.
Airport staff said the drills are intended to provide hands-on training for airport, airline and first-response personnel, as well as test and evaluate new equipment and response procedures.
Did the Phoenix airport emergency training affect flights?
No. The drill was held in an area on the south side of the airport away from public view and did not affect takeoffs or landings.
In the works: A Guy Fieri restaurant and PGA Tour simulator coming to Sky Harbor Terminal 4
Reach the reporter at [email protected]. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter: @salerno_phx.
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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Here's how Phoenix airport first responders train for disasters
