In the past 100 years the Airport Rescue Firefighting (ARFF) has evolved and become an import part of airport operations and planning.
We have also experienced many incidents and accidents involving low speed and high seed aircraft accidents.
This has given rise to ensuring our airport rescue and fire-fighting strategies are current and effective.
The main objectives are to save lives through aircraft rescue and fire-fighting operations.
(This is a generic overview of the airport rescue and fire-fighting emergency plan and may apply to most ARFF services.)
The ARFF emergency plan should be a living working document.
This document may also be your evidence in an Audit of legal finding.
The airport emergency plan should be understood by all stakeholders to be effective.
The document should also be reviewed after an incident or at any time when a process changes and of course annually.
Airport emergency plans pose many challenges and to identify these challenges, many blunders has come to mind, namely:
This is the key to a successful aircraft rescue and fire-fighting operation.
Effective communications carry weight throughout the aircraft emergency plan and should speak to all stakeholders and their actions to be delivered at an aircraft incident and scene.
Any emergency plan should be practised, and exercises conducted to ensure all issues and challenges are addressed before the real scenario.
These exercises should also include all the types of incidents and accidents that may be encountered at an aircraft incident.
This is still occurring today, as many agencies only have contact at a real scenario which may cause confusion in each one’s roles and responsibilities.
The airport Rescue Fire- Fighting (ARFF) team should be in charge on an airport or within their operational limits (Grid reference maps).
ARFF department should have the ability to start operations immediately and have the secondary back up fire agencies to fall into place to assist (Depending on alerts).
The training for all ARFF personal should be qualified to a certain level of competency such as NFPA 1003/I.C.A.O Annexure 14./Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) and any other ARFF regulations that address training for airport fire fighters.
The issues may include:
This is a blunder that is evident when an incident or accident occurs.
The radio communications are paramount for all airport users to verbalise their intent as well as moving from restricted areas.
This should include your airport staff, airside, and other agencies within the spectrum of the airport.
The ARFF personal should receive induction training as an entry level, then at the professional level of an official course in airport familiarisation with assessments and practical components.
On the job training should be per shift and include all your ARFF personal.
Training logbooks.
To address these issues, strategic and effective planning should be deployed, such as:-
Night-time exercises; Foreign object debris (FOD) programmes; Bird strike mitigation programs; All possible aircraft emergencies (Alert 1, Alert 2, Alert 3); In flight emergencies; and on the ground incidents.
Stakeholders should be involved in the planning and formulating your airport emergency plan (ARFF), This is imperative before the incidents occur due to roles and responsibilities of each stakeholder.
Stakeholders should include:
These include your ARFF fire service on the airport as they have the primary role of immediate response rescue and fire fighting procedures (90 seconds after the crash alarm has been sounded).
ARFF personal, crash tenders , fire fighting media and equipment as per I.C.A.O.
Annexure 14.
Responsibilities within the airport derestriction areas.
These are the local fire services.
They will have domestic fire tenders and will be as a support and backup role to the ARFF crews at the scene.
Ambulance and paramedical services, Police and traffic police agencies, Mutual aid Logistical aid Military Governments.
This plays and integral part of your emergency plan.
The Emergency Plan must address all components of an aircraft incident or accident.
To ensure this emergency plan is effective, exercises and drills need to be conducted as well as testing your processes and procedures with all the stakeholders involved.
LLMA Consultants (Pty) LTD is involved with aviation ARFF, airport management, Training, and auditing.
The following solutions may benefit your ARFF department and highlight all grey areas and provide recommendations and cost-effective solutions:-
Dr. Andre Nel began his career in 1982 as a firefighter at East London Airport Fire Services, progressing through various fire departments to achieve the rank of Fire Chief at Virginia Airport/Thaba Tshwane Fire Department and the South African Airforce Command.
After 16 years in the South African Airforce, he transitioned to Liberty Life Group as the Group Occupational Health and Safety Manager.
Dr. Nel holds a Bachelor of Science degree, two master’s degrees in Public Safety/Emergency Response & Risk Management, and a doctorate.
His academic focus includes Emergency Planning, Epidemiology, and the evacuation of people with disabilities.
He is the Dean of the Faculty at the University of Applied Research and Development in New Zealand and a Professor in Emergency Response and Risk Assessment.
Additionally, he is a qualified assessor, moderator, and lecturer at all levels of education and serves as the Director and Head of Training and Development at LLMA Consultants (Pty) LTD.
With over four decades of experience in airport firefighting, Dr. Nel has trained numerous Airport Rescue Firefighters, including the first ARFF NFPA 1003 class at ORT Johannesburg International Airport in 2017.
He also had the honor of training the crew for the State President’s BBJ-700 (ZS-RSA “Nkwazi”) and was awarded a medal for his contributions to safety.
A qualified aviation safety auditor, he has been involved in auditing ATO/FBOs and developing training materials for airport staff.
Active in various aviation workgroups, Dr. Nel is dedicated to providing consultation and expertise. His motto is “Saving lives through education.”
