Airport Crash Rescue Fire Fighters are not needed.

[evansb]

A review of aviation related fatalities of 2014, (or any year for that matter), and one could conclude that airport based emergency services are a near total waste of money. And it is a huge amount of money by the way...

In my 38-year career in aviation I have met, known and befriended over 24 airport based fire fighter/rescuers who, in their entire careers, have never actually rescued anyone.

I propose the elimination of all air-side based emergency services.

I do not eagerly await predictable, knee-jerk, emotional based responses.

I await rational, statistically supported responses.

[RedBullGaveMeWings]

No, just no.

[evansb]

No what? No airport based fire fighters? Then you are in agreement with my global proposal.

I await your rational, statistically based argument.

[The Flying Dodo]

I've never claimed on my car insurance in nearly 30 years of having a car, therefore I see no need for having car insurance in the future.

I've not died in over 50 years of living therefore I see no need for having life assurance in the future.

etc etc etc.

[evansb]

You pay directly for your insurance, and the premium is dependant upon several factors. You also have to pay a deductable fee before any benefit is paid. Insurance makes money for the Insurance Company and their shareholders. Airport fire fighters and the associated fire hall and equipment is a dead loss. Pun not intended.

I will disclose a secret: In the past decade a dozen airports with scheduled airline service have indeed eliminated their airport fire fighters, and most passengers, and even some pilots are not aware of this fact.

[continueapproach737]

And the day you crash land your aircraft you will be wining saying why don't we have ARFF

[Planet Basher]

I would be interested in seeing where the airports are that have closed their Fire Stations. Whilst it would not be too difficult for city airports to do this as some resources are close by, they would still need to factor in the cost to be imposed on the civvy side to provide the extra specialist equipment. More rural airports would be another thing all together as there are no practical support structures in place to start with.

[fa2fi]

It's all well and good saying you can use fire crews based in the city, but what happens when there's a major incident in the city? Who will then fight the fire when someone runs off the end of a runway?

When fire crews attend an incident at an airport now the airport shuts as the rescue services are already occupied with another incident even tough runways may be clear. Are you suggesting airports shut every time the city based fire crews are out on a call?

Furthermore they are all first aid trained and have some equipment to help until ambulance crews arrive - which in the few times a flight I have been on the fire crews were there in minutes, the ambulance a lot longer - 15 minutes recently.

[Planet Basher]

Major UK cities outside London can now only handle 1 large incident at a time, I suppose you could have a service manned by the baggage handlers and cleaners as long as they were allowed to finish their duties before attending the call.:E

[Elephant and Castle]

In Europe most arilines require a minimum fire cover before operating into an airport. Notams publish any reductions in fire cover, if such cover is reduced bellow a minimum you are not allowed to use that ariport and need to divert or not depart.

If fire cover was reduced or eliminated pilots would know because it would be published, pax would know because there would be no flight.

[Lord Spandex Masher]

I'm a purveyor of finest volleyball equipment. If you get rid of ARFF I will go out of business.

[Burnie5204]

I know of 2 incidents within the last 18 months at ONE airport where the presence of an on-site ARFF meant that an incident never developed to the point of the authorities being formally notified. Their presence meant that no formal report was required. One incident would have, without a doubt, caused the loss of 12 lives, the other prevented 180 lives being put at risk.

But they never made the news or the reports because the on-site ARFF crews prevented it from developing. Had they had to wait for municipal crews lives would definitely have been lost in one incident and could have been lost in the second.

[HEATHROW DIRECTOR]

evansb has gone strangely quiet.

[Burnie5204]

You're in the UK Midlands?? Interesting, so 'the authorities being formally notified' means no MOR was filed?*

Please do share more info on the incidents or the reasons that no-one involved submitted an MOR.

There may have been MORs but I don't call blindly submitting a document with brief details as 'formal notification'. I class formally notifying them as having to pick up a phone and say "we've had an incident" like you do with the AAIB. I'm talking about them being prevented from getting to the point where they end up forming part of CAA/AAIB accident statistics.


In the first case the presence of ARFF meant a problem was observed, identified, contained and dealt with as a engineering issue before it snowballed into something much much worse.


The second was a case of unexpected issue only being identified once the aircraft was on stand.



But it misses the point. My point is that you're looking at fatality stats. Though even if you looked at accident stats the figures are still skewed because they completely miss every incident where the presence of ARFF prevented the incident becoming a statistic. For example I know fire crews who responded to a galley oven fire and extinguished it before it spread beyond the oven - that wont appear on accident statistics or fatality statistics but it would have done if the ARFF weren't there to respond.

Or the Heathrow 787, though it is listed as an accident. The presence of on-site ARFF meant the aircraft wasn't a hull loss and the fire was entirely contained within the fuselage.
Or the Heathrow BA777 that crash landed on 27L undershoot back in 2008, ARFF presence prevented the situation worsening and allowed for the rescue of those injured trapped onboard.
Or the SFO 777 crash where (although they unfortunately caused one death) them being onsite meant that the fires were quickly controlled.
Or the Kegworth disaster where the ARFF being onsite meant they were pulling people out of the fuselage before it was consumed by fire.


The ARFFs really do provide a vital service that it would be folly to remove.

[+TSRA]

If I were so inclined, I would have a look at what else ARFF does on an airport other than waiting for an aircraft to crash. Most international airports are small cities in their own right and much like an inner-city department, the airport fire department would respond to calls in the terminal not directly related to aircraft operations.

While true that they may never respond to an aircraft accident, they certainly save lives in the terminal and support buildings that would otherwise be lost to things like heart attacks, choking on that last French fry, or responding to a fire in the baggage area caused by the idiot who decided fireworks were a good idea to check.

Not exactly a waste of money in my mind.

[750XL]

The RFF team at my airport are used for almost everything, they're usually the first on scene to any medical emergency and I've witnessed them save lives first hand.

Not sure I'd fancy being on an aircraft that's just had a large fuel leak on stand (or anywhere else on the airport for that matter) with no RFF based :\:eek: