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Airmen, Manas International Airport personnel participate in MARE

  • Published
  • By 376th Air Expeditionary Wing
  • Public Affairs
TRANSIT CENTER AT MANAS, Kyrgyzstan --  376th Air Expeditionary Wing personnel and Manas International Airport personnel participated in a Major Accident Response Exercise here March 25, 2010.

The overall objective was to exercise the Transit Center at Manas' Comprehensive Emergency Management, Mishap Response, and Medical Contingency Response Plans. These plans outline required actions to establish and maintain accident response capabilities, prevent unnecessary destruction of property, and manage large numbers of casualties. In addition, these plans facilitate the proper assembly of interim safety boards, initial reporting requirements; and the collection/preservation of evidence following a mishap.

Exercise participants included members of the MIA fire department and multiple agencies throughout the Wing including the fire department, medical group, security forces, command post, aircraft maintenance, public affairs, legal, safety, mortuary affairs, chaplain, fuels, transportation, contracting, finance, air traffic control and civil engineering. Also, Unit Control Centers, the Emergency Operations Center and the Installation Control Center were activated, as well as an Interim Safety Board, according to Lt. Col. Mike Clayton, the Exercise and Evaluation Team Chief.

The Manas International Airport, in coordination with the Manas Training Center in Bishkek, provided a Tupolev Tu-154 Static Aircraft Trainer for use as the mishap aircraft in the exercise. The basic scenario involved a "simulated" KC-135 with nine people on board, Colonel Clayton said. The mishap aircraft landed long and then experienced a brake failure upon landing. The aircraft departed the runway at a moderate speed and the nose gear collapsed. The right main gear hit uneven terrain and the left outboard engine separated from aircraft. Fuel began leaking and the aircraft caught fire.

The initial response included MIA and 376th AEW crash, fire and rescue personnel, who extinguished the fire and extracted casualties from the aircraft. 376th Expeditionary Medical Group personnel assessed and treated the victims on scene and transported the patients to the medical clinic for further evaluations and treatment, according to the EET colonel.

"No matter where our Airmen operate from - be it at home station or a deployed location -- anytime we can provide a realistic scenario to test our initial response capabilities to a major accident, it's a huge plus," said Col. Thomas Joyce, 376th Expeditionary Mission Support Group commander. "Today's exercise allowed us to not only test our ability to direct and control the initial response operations of our fire fighters, medics and security forces, but recovery operations as well. Exercising our capabilities provides us with not a only a great training opportunity, but the opportunity to thoughtfully review our actions and processes so that we are better able to anticipate problem areas and improve checklists and communication procedures for future events.

"From my perspective as the director of the Emergency Operations Center, the Airmen who responded to the EOC handled their tasks with the necessary urgency and worked together to best assist the incident commander on scene and formulate action plans to expedite recovery operations," he said.

Lt. Col. Howard Givens, Chief of Aerospace Medicine and EET member, felt the exercise was a "good evaluation of the medical group's ability to receive multiple patients with various types of injuries all at once and to quickly and accurately triage them so that immediate life-saving treatments could be given to those who needed them. Even though the patient scenarios were designed to trip-up the medical staff, they correctly identified and stabilized all the critical patients very quickly."

As the exercise ended, the 376th EMDG was coordinating an air evacuation to move the four critical patients to larger medical centers and the other four patients were being treated and released. Colonel Givens is the commander of the 628th Medical Operations Squadron, Charleston Air Force Base, S.C.

"A major aircraft or ground mishap can occur at any time," said Colonel Clayton, who is assigned to Headquarters, Air Education and Training Command, Randolph Air Force Base, Texas. "We realize that any accident or incident that occurs on Manas International Airport property will affect both MIA personnel and Transit Center personnel. Training and exercises are critical to ensuring that we can effectively respond to such events. This was a phenomenal opportunity to share techniques and procedures with our Kyrgyz partners and to further develop our mutual ability to respond to a major accident. An effective and coordinated joint response is critical to saving lives and minimizing damage. I was very pleased with everyone's performance. While we did identify areas where we can improve; we successfully met all of the exercise objectives."

This exercise was part of the Wing's overall Readiness Exercise Program. The exercise program provides the Commander a means to plan and conduct realistic, integrated exercises, and training for all installation personnel. It maximizes the benefits gained through exercises and provides accurate, honest feedback to commanders for planning, preparation, and training purposes. Specifically, the exercise program strives to enhance readiness, boost capabilities, streamline procedures, and improve mission readiness.

Lt. Col. Mike Clayton, the Exercise and Evaluation Team Chief, contributed to this article.