After watching this video of the fatal crash of a biplane at the Kansas City air show (ItemFix - Social Video Factory) I was left wondering about emergency preparations for such an event, particularly the proximity of fire trucks. In the video, the plane crashes on or near the runway and it’s still about 3 minutes before a fire truck shows up. (I saw another video of an air show crash recently in which the same, seemingly inexcusable delay occurred, but I can’t find that one.)
Now I know from some experience as a police reporter for a newspaper that bystanders always complain about how long it took fire trucks to show up to a fire. It’s understandable: When you’re watching your house burn, even the fastest response seems like a lifetime. That probably applies here too.
But with an airshow, everyone knows the maneuvers are risky and this is a possible outcome. Wouldn’t you have a fire truck standing by during the show, ready to roll? If that crash truck were at the edge of the airfield, firefighters on board, how would it take 3 minutes to arrive at the crash?
The delay in that video does seem somewhat strange. I use to be part of a crew for a P51 Mustang that was flown at airshows in the South. On one of our takeoff rolls the engine cracked a ring and began to pour smoke out of the exhaust. The P51 was commited to take off, so went up and circled around landing on the cross runway. This event required the dispatch of the fire truck. I noticed that it took them what seemed like 2 or three minuts to begin to roll to the now taxing aircraft. From what it looked like, the engine intself was set up on display near the edge of the crowd and it’s crew was circulating within the crowd. I have to attribute the delay to the time it took for the fire crew to assemble at the truck.
Hmm… That would explain a delay if they have all their apparatus on display. I’ve certainly enjoyed touring the crash trucks at air shows myself, but geez, maybe it makes more sense to have one truck actually on duty and standing by.
A typical airport has runways between 1 and 2 miles long. At 60MPH it takes 1-2 minutes to get from one end to the other, ignoring acceleration & deceleration times at the ends.
Even if the fire crew is standing by their apparatus it may take 30 seconds to get everybody on, secured, and get rolling. The last thing the driver wants is to run over one of his own firefighters or have him/her fall off the rapidly accelerating truck.
At a big show there will be more than one response team set up. In that case you don’t want everybody rushing to the scene on their own volition. The whole point of two teams is that one can deal with a problem while the other remains in reserve to deal with the next problem.
So somebody needs to tell the boss there’s a problem and the boss needs to decide who responds & transmit the message to them. It might only take 20 seconds, but that feels like an eternity to people watching with mouths agape & a fresh shot of adrenaline coursing through their veins.
The show’s narrator says, the emergency vehicle is “…making it’s way through the crowd now”. I would think that explains it, except for the question of why it would be stationed on the far side of the audience.
Also, look at the video times. The fire truck was there in almost exactly two minutes.
Before we start criticizing anyone for slow responses, let’s see what actually happened and how long they took:
0:27 First indication of problem (ANN: “Totally out of control”)
0:31 Impact with ground
0:47 ANN: “Ladies and gentlemen, we do have emergency personnel… who are prepared for this”
0:50 First response vehicle is visible on runway (red SUV, possible command car?)
0:52 Horn honking of vehicle making its way through traffic/crowds audible
0:57 Horn honking continues, is joined by sounds of apparatus horn
1:05 Personnel visible emerging from Red SUV at crash site
1:21 Siren sounds audible in short blasts. Likely to be large apparatus attempting to move through pedestrian crowds
1:41 Crew of first response vehicle returns to red SUV
1:52 Second response vehicle (white SUV) visible on runway)
1:56 Red SUV moves away from crash site
2:04 Red SUV stops at apparent junction between nearest taxiway and runway
2:11 White SUV stops at same junction, third response vehicle (golf cart?) appears on runway
2:12 Fourth response vehicle (yellow pickup) appears on runway
2:21 Yellow pickup stops at side of runway
2:27 Fifth response vehicle (yellow crash truck) appears on runway
2:33 Golf cart stops at junction with first two
2:41 Crash truck starts spraying foam while still moving
2:51 Crash truck continues spraying foam while coming to halt at crash site
3:27 Second stream of foam is started from ground personnel, apparently from the cluster of vehicles that’s now gathered at the taxiway/runway junction
This analysis is perhaps too detailed, but we can see that from the first indication of a definite problem to the first visible response was a mere 23 seconds. From impact to first visible response was only 19 seconds. From impact to arrival of the crash truck was 2:10.
It is also apparent that crews were attempting to respond but were having difficulty, so the airshow can perhaps be criticized for either not controlling its crowds better or for not properly positioning apparatus.
I think it’s also important to note the first responders in the red SUV returned to their vehicle in a very short time and then moved that vehicle from the vicinity of the crash site to a logical assembly point. Other vehicles then trickle into that assembly point, and the only one that advances to the site is the crash truck. Due to understandably shaky camera perspective, I’m not sure which one of them brought the second foam stream online, but that was brought into play by dismounted personnel walking up from the assembly point.
My point in mentioning all this is that it is apparent that the first responders dictated the rest of the response very quickly (within a minute or less). I don’t know the protocols at this airport so this is admittedly speculation, but it is possible they determined the impact was not survivable so that the response from that point was focused on controlling the fire and not on rescuing the pilot.
Two minutes isn’t long and would be an extraordinary response in a typical situation. I guess I just expected them to treat an air show as a very atypical situation in which the chance of a crash is much, much higher than a typical Sunday afternoon at the airport. Maybe they still see the likelihood of a crash as too low to have a truck away from the crowd, positioned strategically, ready for the fastest possible response.
It is oddly reminiscent of the scene in Groundhog Day when Bill Murray’s truck land upside down in the quarry and Chris Elliot speculates he might just have survived – until the fireball.
They might have, but an airfield’s a big place and perhaps they guessed wrong.
Or – out where the stunts are happening is supposed to be a very large area completely cleared of people in case of accident, and among those people would be the fire crews. Be really shitty luck if the plane crashed down into a fire truck posted mid-field to get to any possible crash site in the least possible time.
I can’t even imagine what the situation would be like at the Chicago Air and Water show - except that the plane would have hit the lake instead. I’ve seen rescue vehicles trying to move through the crowd there, and if they could get there in 15 minutes, it would be a miracle.
For what it’s worth, Federal Aviation Regulations involve a Response Test with a 3 minute first response standard under *ideal *conditions. There may be other regulations in effect, but here is the wording of the regulation in theCanadian Aviation Regulations(which are essentially identical to the US ones):
Back in my fire academy days we drilled with Fresno Yosemite Internationals Crash Fire Rescue. As a previous person noted, they are not sitting in their trucks waiting for a call, in the case of Fresno, the airport fire crews are all sworn police officers who are assigned work the airport as their primary duty. So they have to zip back to the station in their partol cars, gear up, and then roll out. IIRC this was usually within 3-4 min.
The regular city fire department stations when I was on ridealongs it went as follows.
Alert goes off in station, no matter what apparatus you were on, you drop/shut down what you are doing and head for the apparatus bay.
Usually you knew enough about the nature of the call by the time you got to apparatus to know if you needed to suit up or not, you should be suited up within 30 seconds or so. Response districts for many city fire departments are actually about the same size as an airport. So its not a big shock that it takes a few minutes.
That pilot also hit the ground at terminal velocity and into a fireball. Nobody survives that so rushing things wouldn’t be prudent since doing so could add to the injury list. And I’m an optimist.
When it was mentioned in the MPSIMS thread, I said I noticed a delay. What I didn’t say was that I noticed the delay while watching a video on a couch, knowing that there was going to be a crash. From that perspective, it did seem to take a bit of time to get to the crash site. But I’ve been present for two airshow crashes. I was too far away to see the response for the F-86, but I was up front for the F/A-18. The response was immediate, but it still took time to reach the aircraft. When you’re there, the rescue teams are moving as fast as they can. Reclining on a couch watching a limited field a view and not hearing much besides the announcer urging calm, the perception is that it took the crews a long-ish time to get there.
Even in an obviously fatal crash, I’m sure that the rescue crews are going in with the hope that maybe, just maybe, they could save a life. Beyond that, it’s important to put out the fire as quickly as possible to preserve any evidence of what may have caused the crash.
I was at the 4 July 1980 airshow at Willow Grove NAS where a child ejected from an S-3 Viking that was on static display. I tried to find a detailed article online, but all I could find was a Wikipedia entry:
[QUOTE=Wikipedia]
4 July—A seven-year-old boy is killed and several others are injured when he manages to fire an ejection seat in S-3A Viking, BuNo 159769, c/n 394A-1098, of VS-24, at NAS Willow Grove, Pennsylvania during an open house.
[/QUOTE]
I was at the opposite end of the public area, heard the boom of the rockets, and saw the smoke trail headed up into the sky. I would have been 12 years old at the time, and even I knew enough to be:
[ol]
[li]Horrified by what I knew had just happened, and[/li][li]Impressed at how quickly emergency vehicles were responding.[/li][/ol]
At least one helicopter and multiple emergency ground vehicles moved in that direction within minutes. I’m certain that any emergency plans that had been drawn up did not anticipate accidental ejection from a plane on static display; considering this, the response time was remarkable.
My god, they left an ejection seat armed during an open house? I thought they were supposed to be disarmed at all times other than flight to avoid an accidental firing.
Maybe that second line needs to be added to the flags! Everything else is getting multiple warning signals…maybe it can politely ask if you’re about to take off when you grab it too?
