Tulsa International Airport Conducts Disaster Response Drill

By Chris Wright, The News On 6

TULSA, OK -- Tulsa International Airport conducted a full-scale disaster drill Tuesday morning.

Twenty-three agencies, including law enforcement, rescue and firefighting and medical personnel, came together for the drill, designed to simulate a plane crash.

The FAA requires drills like this to be held once every three years. It's an unthinkable situation, but it's one authorities say they have to be prepared for.

In the simulation, a Boeing 777 en route from Dallas has been downed by a bird strike. It has 299 passengers, 5 crew members and 65,000 pounds of fuel. 

"This is not something that we practice. This is not a scripted thing. This is an actual training exercise. Our guys are going to be doing what they would be doing in an emergency situation," said Capt. Bill French, Tulsa Fire Department.

In the drill, first responders discovered 73 people dead and 231 injured. They had to quickly coordinate their efforts to treat and transport the surviving passengers. 

Officials say exercises like this are important, but admit that simulating what would happen in an actual crash is almost impossible.

"You can train for it, but can you prepare for it? No. I don't truly believe so. Just because of the rarity of the situations. Thank goodness we don't have these," said French.

Besides offering training for emergency agencies, the exercise also provided insight for the airport itself. 

"There's a lot of training that goes on behind the scenes. This is the culmination of all the training," said Alexis Higgins, TIA Spokesperson. 

It's training everyone hopes will pay off should the unthinkable ever happen.

"To see an actual airport emergency at an airport the size of Tulsa is very rare thank goodness," said French.

Authorities say plane crashes are especially tough to simulate because most don't actually happen on runways. Instead, they say they usually occur in remote areas, and that makes it difficult for so many emergency vehicles to respond so quickly.

Officials say the drill did not impact routine airport operations.