Airport Full Scale Emergency Exercise 2012 was carried out successfully

With the objective of testing and assessing the efficiency of the Airport Emergency Plan, the Macau International Airport carried out the “Full Scale Emergency Exercise 2012” in the early morning on 06 July 2012. The exercise simulated the scenario of two aircraft crashing at the taxiway junction which ended up in a number of casualties. The Airport Emergency Plan was immediately activated to deal with the accident. The relevant government bodies and the aviation operators took part in the search and rescue actions. The whole exercise involved the participation of 100 people which was deemed a success.

The exercise took place at 04:00 in the early morning. The scenario was as follows: a general aviation aircraft carrying 10 people on board experienced steering problems after landing on the Macau International Airport runway and was forced to a stop at the taxiway junction. At this moment, another aircraft carrying 88 people on board could not avoid but collided with the first aircraft, although the pilot had already applied full breaks attempting to stop the aircraft. As a result, the general aviation aircraft was broken into two sections due to the impact. The aft section caught fire. The second aircraft rested against the runway seawall and fuel was spilling out from the left wing. The accident led to a number of casualties. After it had happened, the Airport Emergency Plan was immediately activated. All responsible parties arrived at the Airport Emergency Operations Centre to coordinate with each other for search and rescue actions. With the effort of the coordination team and the search and rescue team, all the injured were admitted to hospital in a timely manner. The search and rescue actions ended at 05:45. The simulated operations of the uninjured passenger handling area and the family assistance centre still continued after the conclusion of the search and rescue actions. The whole exercise was eventually concluded until 07:00.

Conducted in accordance with the work schedule approved in the beginning of this year by the Facilitation and Security Committee, the exercise was coordinated by Administration of Airports, Ltd., and the search and rescue actions were led by Fire Services Bureau. Participating entities also comprised Unitary Police Force, Macao Customs Services, Public Security Police Force, Judiciary Police, Security Coordination Office, Health Bureau, Maritime Administration, Civil Aviation Authority, CAM-Macau International Airport Company Ltd., Air Macau Co. Ltd., Macau Jet International Co. Ltd., Macau Security Company Ltd. (airport security) and Menzies Macau Airport Services Ltd.

Full scale emergency exercises are carried out on a regular basis in Macau International Airport with the objective of testing and assessing the effectiveness of the Airport Emergency Plan and the capacity of the participating entities on command and control, coordination, communication, resource allocation and so on when facing emergencies, so that the participants can further improve themselves in recognizing and dealing with contingencies.

Full Scale Emergency Exercise 2012: Macau International Airport carried out an exercise on 06 July 2012 to simulate the activation of the Airport Emergency Plan in response to two aircraft crashing at the airport taxiway junction which led to a number of casualties. The responsible parties performed the search and rescue actions upon receipt of crash alarm notification.

Full Scale Emergency Exercise 2012: The airlines concerned in this simulation set up the passenger handling area in the terminal building to help register those uninjured passengers.