Drill tests airport readiness

Airport and air base assess response to attack and mass casualties.

BY JORDAN COHEN

VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT

VIENNA — A lone terrorist in a pickup truck shoots and kills a Vienna police officer at Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport, drives onto the tarmac and throws a bomb that explodes under an airliner full of passengers. He then speeds north on the taxiway to the adjoining Air Force Reserve base, where he rams his truck into a C-130 aircraft in a suicide bombing that kills himself and the crew of four on the plane.

Sound implausible? Not to anyone involved in the mock scenario Saturday designed to test the airport, area safety forces and military’s ability to cope with a sudden emergency and mass casualties.

It certainly was not implausible to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and Transportation Security Administration (TSA), which sent representatives to test the regional airport for its security accreditation. The FAA requires the test every three years.

“You don’t do these things too often, but you have to have an idea how to react to an actual situation if it occurs,” said Steve Bowser, airport director.

On the tarmac behind the airport terminal, two large snowplows were used to simulate the bombed airliner. Members of the Boy Scouts and students studying public safety at the Trumbull Career and Technical Center played the “mass casualties.” All were lying on the tarmac and most had makeup displaying blood loss and a variety of injuries. One youth had a wooden sliver in the center of his skull.

“I’m surprised at how much is involved,” said Dakota Chisholm, 17, a TCTC student and one of the “casualties” who wore makeup displaying severe facial injuries. “There really is so much to this.”

The mock victims numbered 36 injured and 12 dead in the airline bombing. “Survivors” were evacuated by members of the 910th Airlift Wing fire department in silver protective gear called “proximity suits” that are worn when responding to an aircraft explosion or fire. The volunteer victims were taken by ambulances to St. Elizabeth Health Center and Forum Health Trumbull Memorial Hospital to test their mass casualty preparedness.

At the 910th, two separate scenarios played out. In one, the suicide bombing succeeded; in the other, air base security was able to stop the truck before it hit the C-130 and detonated.

“They [security] did their job and stayed in place,” said Master Sgt. Tom Morrison, assistant chief of operations, 910th Fire Department. “In the real world, the bad guy would have never made it this far. They would have taken him out.”

Bowser, the airport director, said it will be several days before he receives the FAA and TSA evaluations of the joint emergency exercise. For the 910th, the critique will be immediate from the unit’s own exercise evaluation team.

The airport was closed for four hours during the mock disaster, and police blocked all access into the facility except for participants.