Our firefighters played an important role in a large-scale multi-agency training exercise which simulated a plane crash at Southampton Airport last week.
Responding to the scenario were crews from Eastleigh, Hamble, who were joined by the HIWFRS Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) team, as well as their Wales USAR colleagues.
They faced a challenging incident which saw a plane crashed into a car park, resulting in multiple casualties and vehicles involved.
The exercise, titled Exercise Casus, also tested emergency responders from South Central Ambulance Service, HART, Southampton Airport Fire Service and Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary, as well as the HIWFRS Incident Command Unit team.
Other players represented in the training which began shortly before 10am on Thursday, included Border Force, Air Accident Investigation Branch, Rail Incident officers, and other Local Resilience Forum partners.
Representing HIWFRS on the planning committee for the exercise was USAR Tactical Advisor and Eastleigh Fire Station Commander Paul Lawler. He said:
“This exercise took months of planning to ensure all partners met their training objectives, whilst supporting colleagues at the Airport to ensure their assurance visit went extremely well. This scenario challenged our firefighters and commanders’ response to a major incident at one of our area’s critical sites.
“The size of this exercise highlights how complex an incident of this nature would be, so this training has provided an incredibly valuable experience for our teams, testing not just our firefighting and rescue skills, but also blue-light and partner collaboration.
“Of course, we hope we never have to use these skills in real life, but it’s important we prepare ourselves so that we are ready for whatever scale of incident we are faced with.
Gavin Williams, Managing Director of Southampton Airport said:
“We were proud to lead, support and host this vital training scenario at Southampton Airport.
“Safety is our top priority, and collaborating with emergency services in realistic simulations like this ensures we’re prepared for any eventuality.
“The professionalism and coordination shown by all agencies involved was outstanding, and we’re grateful to have played a role in strengthening regional resilience.”
Station Manager Paul Lawler also performed the role of the HIWFRS incident commander. He continued:
“We would not have been able to replicate this training at any other location, so a big thank you to our hosts at Southampton Airport, who allowed us access to their site and tested their own procedures and multi-agency response in the exercise.”
“A big thank you to all that participated, this includes firefighters, USAR teams, our incident command unit, command assessors Mark and Jon, as well as the support from Station Manager Jason Boh.
“The exercise also gave our new search and rescue canine, Dottie, and her handler, Spencer, the opportunity for realistic training to support their development.”
The HIWFRS Urban Search and Rescue team played their part in making the crash site safe for partner agencies and assisted in casualty rescues.
The dedicated Incident Command Unit team is made up of individuals from diverse roles across the organisation including Fire Control, IT, Technical Services and more. On an on-call basis they are mobilised to incidents in command vehicles used on the fireground to assist with communications, logistics, accountability and incident management.
