BANGOR, Maine — Staff at Bangor International Airport, along with first responders and health care officials, staged a full-scale emergency exercise Tuesday, leaving the runway closed and the terminal empty of passengers.
The drill, mandated by the Federal Aviation Administration, simulated a fire involving two planes on the tarmac, represented by Bangor city buses. Using the International Terminal as an emergency operations center, staff from several government agencies formulated a response to the scenario under the watch of evaluators.
“It helps us avoid complacency,” airport director Jose Saavedra said Tuesday. “It helps us make sure everyone has the procedures either memorized or know how to get the answers when something like this would happen.”
The exercise, which Saavedra said happens every three years, holds particular significance at Bangor International Airport. With one of the longest runways on the Eastern Seaboard and located at a critical point in transatlantic aviation routes, the airport has been a preferred destination for aircraft in distress for decades, sometimes putting the airport's emergency response to the test.
“We can expect anything really that is coming from Europe or looking for the last stop in the U.S.,” Saavedra explained.
While Bangor serves as a landing point for these flights, the exercise Tuesday focused on a disaster that would happen on the ground. This comes as transportation officials raise alarms about the increase in close calls on runways across the nation. Last fall, National Transportation Safety Board chair Jennifer Homendy told lawmakers in Washington, D.C., that “the safety system is showing clear signs of strain that we cannot ignore.”
Those gathered in Bangor for the drill saw it as training for an event that could happen one day.
“There’s always a possibility that it will [happen],” Kathy Knight of Northern Light Health said Tuesday. “When it does, if it does, then we want to make sure that we’re prepared.”