Shannon Airport has today (Tuesday) conducted a crash-exercise to validate the combined response of the airport together with the support of the primary emergency agencies and other key stakeholders that would react to any aviation incident at the airport.
Participating agencies include Shannon airport, Clare County Council, An Garda Síochána, Health Service Executive, National Ambulance Service and Irish Aviation Authority (IAA).
Students from NUIG’s College of Hotel Management took on the varied roles of passengers, relatives and press.
Commenting on the crash-exercise, Niall Maloney, airport operations director, said: “Crash-exercises are conducted every two years at Shannon Airport as a condition of its aerodrome licence and we use the opportunity then in conjunction with the other emergency services to test the regional major emergency plan and site specific arrangements for the airport.
“The safety of our customer airlines, passengers and staff is paramount to us and today’s exercise allows us to test our readiness for a real life situation should it ever occur. It is about ensuring that, if the worst case scenario happens, we and our colleagues in the other attending emergency services are adequately prepared to respond.”
The three hour exercise, code-named ‘Exercise Shamrock’, was based on a simulated incident involving an aircraft fire adjacent to the terminal building.
“In all in excess of 150 personnel across all agencies were involved in the exercise on the day and we would like to thank them all for this assistance,” Niall Maloney added.
A native of Ennis, Colin McGann has been editor of The Clare Champion since August 2020. Former editor of The Clare People, he is a journalism and communications graduate of Dublin Institute of Technology.