Yeager Airport along with the West Virginia Aeronautics Commission sponsors and organizes the annual West Virginia Aviation Conference. This year’s event was held at the beautiful Greenbrier Resort in White Sulphur Springs, WV on August 8 through the 10th. This was the most successful conference we have held and we have received many positive comments.
We attracted national speakers to the conference, including, Kate Lang, the FAA Deputy Administrator, Mike Boyd, President of The Boyd Group, Henry Ogrodzinski, President of the National Association of Aviation Officials, Joe Esposito, Director of Schedule Planning for Delta Air Lines, Lisa Piccione, VP of Government Affairs for National Business Aviation Association, as well as Congressman Nick Joe Rahall, and Governor Joe Manchin and Senator Rockefeller addressed the conference via video because of his need to be in Washington. Each person provided a unique perspective on various hot topic issues in aviation. The conference all so provided sessions on current legal issues, trends in engineering practices and a very informative session on airport emergency response systems.
Attendees from airports in West Virginia, engineering firms, and suppliers, pilots, authority board members, congressional staff members, air traffic controllers, and state officials all were able to learn from the presenters and interact with others from the West Virginia Aviation community. I was told many years ago that when attending a conference that many times the best information is picked up in the hallway or at a reception when talking with a colleague. That was very good advice and very true.
My main point in this post is just not to brag a little about what a great conference the West Virginia Aviation Conference is and to encourage others to attend this wonderful event that is the best value of any conference, but to encourage business related travel in general. In tough economic times, many entities cut travel and training budgets first. In my opinion that is short sighted and pennywise but pound foolish. Business grow when their most valuable resources, their employees, are equipped with fresh ideas and approaches to the business and can implement innovative ideas that will grow the business, and or produce real cost savings that make the business more productive.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
When the Siren Sounds
The sound of the siren going off at the airport jolts one, no matter how long they have worked here. When the air traffic controllers activate the siren that means that a pilot has declared an emergency and everything else going on at the airport is going to take a back seat to the emergency until it is resolved. On Tuesday July 27, 2010, just before 9 am, the siren sounded. A commercial aircraft 757 with 179 souls on board had a report of smoke in the aircraft and was going to be on the ground in less than eight minutes.
At this point, the airport’s emergency plan goes from a bunch of words and charts in a book, to real life first responders and support personnel on the ground. Yeager Airport is a joint Civil/Military Airport, and the West Virginia Air National Guard maintains a full time professional Aircraft Rescue and Fire Fighting Unit in place, and they are the unit that responds to all airfield emergencies. The Kanawha County Metro 911 Center handles the dispatch and communications with all other responding agencies and support personnel, and those calls go out instantly to all agencies either by radio communications, or via an automated telephone system to support personnel.
A pre-determined response for each type of incident is included in the emergency plan and each agency knows what equipment and personnel is needed to respond to the airport based on the size of the aircraft and the type of emergency. The Federal Aviation Administration also requires each commercial airport to complete an annual review of the plan and every three years to do a live drill of the plan to practice and identify any areas of the plan that need to be improved or changed.
The public has a right to know what is happening during an emergency and they depend upon the local press to provide information. A Public Information Officer is identified in the plan to provide regular updates and notices to the public at large and the press. Using the technology available, the PIO provides regular updates using The Airport’s Website, Facebook and Twitter which local media monitor and are able to receive timely factual and accurate information. If there is a need a press briefing will be held to answer questions and provide additional information.
Our response team, including, airlines serving Yeager, the Transportation Security Administration, Kanawha County Sheriff Department, Charleston Police, Fire and EMT, Kanawha County Ambulance, Pinch Fire Department, Kanawha Valley Regional Transportation, CAMC and Health Net, along with the other agencies mentioned above, work in accordance with the National Incident Management System protocols to establish a joint command and perform the functions outlined in the emergency plan.
Yeager Airport has experienced quite a few pilot declared emergencies of planes that are not bound for Charleston, but rather experience problems near our airspace and make a decision to land at CRW to safely deal with the problem. Each time the airport response team has handled the issues in a professional manner and in the after action reviews we have identified ways that our response can be improved.
I didn’t hear the siren on Tuesday because I was on vacation, and I was out of town last summer when a 737 declared an emergency due to a hole in its fuselage nor was I in town when an aircraft reject takeoff and was stopped by the Engineered Material Arresting System. I am thankful that through modern communications I can stay in contact with the airport response team via my cell phone during an emergency and offer any support that I can. The best part of the entire response team is that it is not dependent upon a person, but rather a group of organizations that know their jobs and have highly trained and dedicated personnel that have the safety of others as their highest priority.
At this point, the airport’s emergency plan goes from a bunch of words and charts in a book, to real life first responders and support personnel on the ground. Yeager Airport is a joint Civil/Military Airport, and the West Virginia Air National Guard maintains a full time professional Aircraft Rescue and Fire Fighting Unit in place, and they are the unit that responds to all airfield emergencies. The Kanawha County Metro 911 Center handles the dispatch and communications with all other responding agencies and support personnel, and those calls go out instantly to all agencies either by radio communications, or via an automated telephone system to support personnel.
A pre-determined response for each type of incident is included in the emergency plan and each agency knows what equipment and personnel is needed to respond to the airport based on the size of the aircraft and the type of emergency. The Federal Aviation Administration also requires each commercial airport to complete an annual review of the plan and every three years to do a live drill of the plan to practice and identify any areas of the plan that need to be improved or changed.
The public has a right to know what is happening during an emergency and they depend upon the local press to provide information. A Public Information Officer is identified in the plan to provide regular updates and notices to the public at large and the press. Using the technology available, the PIO provides regular updates using The Airport’s Website, Facebook and Twitter which local media monitor and are able to receive timely factual and accurate information. If there is a need a press briefing will be held to answer questions and provide additional information.
Our response team, including, airlines serving Yeager, the Transportation Security Administration, Kanawha County Sheriff Department, Charleston Police, Fire and EMT, Kanawha County Ambulance, Pinch Fire Department, Kanawha Valley Regional Transportation, CAMC and Health Net, along with the other agencies mentioned above, work in accordance with the National Incident Management System protocols to establish a joint command and perform the functions outlined in the emergency plan.
Yeager Airport has experienced quite a few pilot declared emergencies of planes that are not bound for Charleston, but rather experience problems near our airspace and make a decision to land at CRW to safely deal with the problem. Each time the airport response team has handled the issues in a professional manner and in the after action reviews we have identified ways that our response can be improved.
I didn’t hear the siren on Tuesday because I was on vacation, and I was out of town last summer when a 737 declared an emergency due to a hole in its fuselage nor was I in town when an aircraft reject takeoff and was stopped by the Engineered Material Arresting System. I am thankful that through modern communications I can stay in contact with the airport response team via my cell phone during an emergency and offer any support that I can. The best part of the entire response team is that it is not dependent upon a person, but rather a group of organizations that know their jobs and have highly trained and dedicated personnel that have the safety of others as their highest priority.
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