What action do controllers take if an aircraft declares a pan?
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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.
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 Jun 2013 at 14:08.
Calm the beans Verci - this isn't your usual measured reply - I reckon you're being rather unfair to Burnie & his pals !
At my last place of employment, if you waited till an aircraft was out of FL100 before hitting the button, it could normally be only 25 miles from touchdown. The local authority fire station is 3 3/4 miles away, all but the last 1/2 mile being through busy urban streets, so most times 'blues & two's" would be very necessary.
I have no idea what the Fire Service instructions are for response to a "Full Emergency" but surely the more notice they get, the better, for all sorts of reasons, not least the need to reassign vehicles from another area as temporary cover ?!
It would probably help if someone would decide that the response for a 1 pob PA28 needn't be the same as a B777 with 320 pob !
Edited to add "you just beat me to it Burnie!"
At my last place of employment, if you waited till an aircraft was out of FL100 before hitting the button, it could normally be only 25 miles from touchdown. The local authority fire station is 3 3/4 miles away, all but the last 1/2 mile being through busy urban streets, so most times 'blues & two's" would be very necessary.
I have no idea what the Fire Service instructions are for response to a "Full Emergency" but surely the more notice they get, the better, for all sorts of reasons, not least the need to reassign vehicles from another area as temporary cover ?!
It would probably help if someone would decide that the response for a 1 pob PA28 needn't be the same as a B777 with 320 pob !
Edited to add "you just beat me to it Burnie!"
Last edited by Eric T Cartman; 17th Jun 2013 at 14:10.
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From reading some of the posts it would appear that at some units pressing the Crash Alarm automatically alerts the external services. At the FISO unit at which I work the crash alarm only alerts the airfield RFFS. If external services are required we need to dial 999.
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Certainly at the airport I work at they have 5 buttons and a 'red phone'
The buttons are:
Crash Alarm (Alerts RFFS and Airfield Ops)
Fire Service Auto Alerter - Full Turnout (For Pax Aircraft)
Fire Service Auto Alerter - Partial Turnout (For Cargo Aircraft and smaller aircraft)
Ambulance Auto Alerter - Full
Ambulance Auto Alerter - Partial
The Autoalerters generate an incident on the Fire and Ambulance dispatch system so that they can start dispatching units to the airport.
The 'red phone' is an Auto Dialler straight to Police. It autogenerates an 'Aircraft Emergency' incident log on the Police dispatch system and connects to a dedicated phoneline. The emergency details are then passed to the police who then pass the details on to Fire and Ambulance afterwards.
The buttons are:
Crash Alarm (Alerts RFFS and Airfield Ops)
Fire Service Auto Alerter - Full Turnout (For Pax Aircraft)
Fire Service Auto Alerter - Partial Turnout (For Cargo Aircraft and smaller aircraft)
Ambulance Auto Alerter - Full
Ambulance Auto Alerter - Partial
The Autoalerters generate an incident on the Fire and Ambulance dispatch system so that they can start dispatching units to the airport.
The 'red phone' is an Auto Dialler straight to Police. It autogenerates an 'Aircraft Emergency' incident log on the Police dispatch system and connects to a dedicated phoneline. The emergency details are then passed to the police who then pass the details on to Fire and Ambulance afterwards.
Last edited by Burnie5204; 18th Jun 2013 at 19:33.
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I've no idea what happens at Heathrow now but it used to be that there were two buttons on the telephone keypad along with other buttons for other agencies. Controllers were aware of the emergency categories and would decide which was appropriate. The "red" button (if you like to call it that) was used when there was either an Aircraft Ground Incident (AGI) which could be, for example, a fire on an aircraft or something similar or an Aircraft Accident imminent or an Air Craft Accident. The initial call gave brief information on the location of the aircraft and the appropriate Rendezvous Point (decided by the controller). Within 3 minutes a further call was made with greater detail. The ther button on the keypad was the AFS Emergency Line which was used to notify a Full Emergency or a Local Standby.
Every thing was then taken care of by the emergency services and the aiurport PBX and ATC had no other involvement. It all worked like a charm.... but it's probably long changed.
Every thing was then taken care of by the emergency services and the aiurport PBX and ATC had no other involvement. It all worked like a charm.... but it's probably long changed.
