THUNDER BAY – Air travellers may have caught a glimpse of quite the commotion at the Thunder Bay Airport as their flights were arriving and departing.
The airport held an active exercise on Wednesday to assess its emergency response and preparedness protocols.
“The primary objective of this exercise is to appraise the coordination and communication effectiveness among airport personnel, airlines and emergency responders,” said Ryan Brading, manager of airport services.
“The intricacies inherent in the exercise really underscore how important it is to collaborate and communicate among our various agencies and provide an important opportunity to become familiar with the people and processes we have in place today.”
Brading said the exercise involved structuring a response to an unplanned disruption inside an aircraft, mid-flight.
“We have experienced a lot of incidents over the past few years at the airport and we really take our planning and training and procedures very seriously, most of which far exceed regulatory requirements,” he said.
“We consider ourselves leaders within the airport industry and, through advanced consultation with our participating agencies, we've included realistic events that intentionally stress test our established procedures.”
Multiple organizations participated in the exercise alongside airport crews including the OPP, RCMP, Thunder Bay Fire Rescue, Superior EMS, and the Thunder Bay Police Service.
Brading said there were roughly 60 people taking part.
“The relationship we have with the city crews, Thunder Bay Fire, EMS, and the hospital and police of various levels of law enforcement is very positive and very strong. I'm actually proud to say that we have a very tight relationship with all of them at the airport authority,” Brading said.
