Originally Posted by
sire
What is the verbiage you all use to request the fire department (the trucks) to come to your airplane when you land after an emergency or while on the runway and actively in need (like a fire) or just in case (hot brakes)?
What would be a universally understood call to ATC that works all over the world? Crash - Fire - Rescue ?
I can only guess that "rolling the trucks" might not be understood everywhere (but Texas....haha)
Thanks
I'd hope to hear something like
Tower ABC123, then location, request fire service then reason and any immediate action crew are taking. If you know of any HAZchem cargo etc that may have an influence advise that too.
Location = stand/taxiway/holding point
The ATCO may have to cross refer that to a fire map that is a grid system to tell RFFS to go to location X in grid H4. The grid airfield map is widely used for simplicity to give an easy primary indication of incident location. Not every crew member will be 100% on each taxiway stand location hence the grid format. Depending on severity the service may cut direct across the grass to you, but also may use airport roads and manoeuvring area.
Reason = fire indication, possible hot brakes Thats important as that preps the fire crew as to what they're attending and their likely response, it helps ATC and airfield ops in a very quick tactical assessment of how that will affect the airfield operations, with perhaps blocked taxiway and potential duration.
The fire crew will advise ATC on deployment if the airfield fire category is degraded immediately, and will update again on arrival at location. That too has an immediate effect potentially on both ground and air traffic that ATC need to consider. Variables are obviously things like airport size and fire crew equipment and team size