David Y. Ige

HONOLULU – The Daniel K. Inouye International Airport will serve as the staging area for an emergency response exercise Friday, October 20, 2017. The exercise is a mandatory certification requirement by the Federal Aviation Administration which tests airfield disaster preparedness and response by simulating a full-scale aircraft emergency disaster. The exercise tests and evaluates the operational capacity of emergency response in a stress environment.

The multi-agency exercise, from 8:00 a.m. to noon, utilizes hundreds of volunteers from the University of Hawaii at Manoa, Hawaii Pacific University, Chaminade University and airport personnel, who act as injured passengers. Participating agencies include HDOT Airports Division staff, HDOT Aircraft Rescue Fire Fighting (ARFF) units, Securitas, FAA, TSA, City & County of Honolulu Fire and Police Departments, Emergency Medical Services, American Medical Response, Joint Base Pearl Harbor Hickam Federal Fire Department, U.S. Coast Guard, Hawaii Department of Public Safety and airline personnel.

Flight operations will continue as normal during the exercise with no impact to scheduled flights.

HDOT alerts the public there will be realistic scenarios portraying injured people on the airport property and may include fire, fire suppression, rescue, triage, treatment and transportation using emergency response vehicles. We alert the public this is a drill and not a real life emergency.

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