Newkarnataka- Mangalore
Mangalore, Apr 30: Airport Authority of India (AAI) along with CISF, airline operators, and other external agencies like city fire brigade, health department, hospitals, and police personnel organized a mock drill sorts at Mangalore International Airport here on Tuesday April 29. A full scale emergency mock exercise was carried out in the airport premises. It is mandatory to conduct such drills once in every two years in order to test emergency services teams’ preparedness to prevent or deal with disasters.
A small model airplane was set alight and fire, ambulance, and other emergency services were informed. All of them rushed to the spot and carried out the rescue operations in a genuine and natural manner.
J T Radhakrishna, airport director, Mangalore International Airport, while interacting with the media said that an aircraft model was used in this exercise. The situation imitated the crash of an aircraft with about 67 passengers just outside the airport premises. AAI fire brigade attended and city fire brigade joined in fire extinguishing and rescue services. The ‘victims’ were picked up by the hospital teams for treatment. CISF/ police personnel extended their service in putting up barricades and the like.
“Since the air crash of May 2010, it has become even more critical to carry out mock exercises for efficacy and familiarization in handling such aircraft accidents by involving all the relevant external agencies,” added Radhakrishna.
H S Varadarajan, chief of Karnataka fire and safety services department, Mangalore division, further explained the mock drill and said that they received the call that an air crash has occurred at Mangalore Airport and we rushed to the spot with the fire engines and staff. We carried out the mock drill to ensure thoroughness in fighting such a fire disaster. It is mandatory to carry out such operations once in two years.”
The implementation of the mock drill was possible due to the co-operation of Manjunath, nodal officer, district disaster management committee and district administration. T F Moosa, JGM (ATC), and Nandakumar Koolath, AGM (ATC), were the nodal officers from AAI. M Balachandran, JGM (ATC), M M Francis, JGM (Elect), K Anbarasu, JGM (CNS), A N Srinivasa, DGM (Civil), Ajay Indran, AGM (ATC), Dhananjay Shanbhag, AM (FS), and airline station managers, Sudhir Bhatt, Gladwin Mascarenhas, and Biddappa participated in the mock drill.
