Roanoke-Blacksburg Regional Airport performs full-scale crash test

ROANOKE, Va. ( WFXR ) – The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) requires airports to conduct extensive emergency drills once every three years.

Thursday, September 19, The Roanoke-Blacksburg Regional Airport conducted its disaster test.

The goal is to test the airport’s emergency response plan. Nothing from the event was real.

“It was an incredible group effort from all our airport staff to our mutual aid partners to responding agencies and our volunteers,” Alexa Briehl, the public relations, marketing and media manager for the Roanoke airport, said. “(The volunteers) are ready for show biz.”

The type of disaster differs every time they do one of these. This time the scenario was a plane that crashed into a field shortly after takeoff. It skidded across Interstate 581 and took out two cars on the way down.

It took the airport staff all three years to prepare for this event.

“The first year would be to go through your emergency plans with your stakeholders,” Ben Cook, the director of public safety for the Roanoke Airport, said. “The next year, we do the same thing, except we add a table-top exercise to it, then the third year, we play off that, and we have an on-site full-out response.”

It’s also a chance for first responders in fire, EMS, and police to go through their plans in an emergency like this. They were there as well, acting as if they were helping the plane crash victims.

As for the victims, the airport put out an invitation on its Facebook looking for some, and so many people signed up, that they had to turn down some because all the spots were filled.

All of them got a role that morning, and they acted them out during the test.

After the test, local public information officers (PIOs) set up a mock press conference back at the airport, where they practiced sharing details with other PIOs, who pretended to be reporters.

“You can have your points ready to go, but in the moment, you really have to be sharp and speak to what you know, and what the truth is,” Briehl said.

Evaluators were also present taking notes on the test. They plan to work with airport staff in the coming weeks on what needs to be done with the current emergency plan.

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