Because, in that instance, aircraft with brakes failure warrants a full turnout.
ATC had already given the RFFS the aircraft ETA with 2hrs notice so that they could rearrange their plans so that they were all on station ready and waiting, why not grant that to the external services?
It allows our dispatchers and resource planners to make vehicles available if they can say "well I know that in 30 minutes time I'm going to need 6 crews at the airport so I can take 1 crew from here, 1 from there and still maintain cover in this area here.
For the fire service, when the crash alarm goes, we take up ALL 3 tenders from a major town, ALL 2 tenders from another town AND the retained tender from another because they are the nearest 6 tenders and the only ones close enough to attend in a reasonable timeframe. This means that none of those tenders are available for incidents in the surrounding areas and they end up with emergency response from much, much further away.
With enough notice they would be able to bring tenders from further away to maintain the local communities fire cover.
And no we do not just turn the blues and twos on 'willy nilly' and I resent your tone suggesting that we do it for fun. We only do it when we need to - like when we have less than 10 minutes (the time to descend from FL100) to travel 10 miles from station to the airport RVP - an average speed for the entire journey of 60mph. From my station we go a 10 hour shift and only have 4-5 'blue light' calls and thats a station which has 12 units based - in a shift less than half of the units will be required to use their legal exemptions or blues and twos. We are heavily accountable for everything we do. Our controllers even get notifications on their screen when blue lights get activated and if we're not assigned to an emergency call will ask us why we have them on so we cant just pop them on to fetch the food as people often accuse us of.
And you're right - it is my job to drive within the law, and we do - emergency services are exempt from speed limits and red lights so at all times I'm on Blues and Twos I am still driving within the letter of the law.
However, when the blues and twos are going you get people who panic rather than think. One of my colleagues was driving down a road which had a central hatched area. He was drivong down that central hatched area when a driver heard his siren and paniced. Without looking they pulled out of their lane into the hatched area in front of him. No amount of training can prevent that.
All I'm suggesting is that it should be considered to notifying the external services early when you know you're going to need them - in the instance I've used the ATC watch already knew they were going to declare a Full Emergency as they told the RFFS - so why not also tell the external services?
The more time anyone has to prepare the better it is for everyone.
Essentially, if you know that an emergency inbound is going to go to Full Emergency then dont wait to the last second to get the emergency services rolling.
You dont do it for declared medical emergencies, you tell the relevant people as soon as you know so that an Ambulance can already be airside waiting before the aircraft lands but seemingly not when you need 6 Fire crews, 8 Ambulances and 4 Police units which get next to no notice at all.
I'm not saying sound the crash alarm when the aircraft is halfway over the Atlantic still but CONSIDER notifying the emergency services (through the airport RFFS Control maybe) that you will need them when the aircraft arrives, if you intend to go to full emergency.
Last edited by Burnie5204; 17th June 2013 at 14:08.