THE Civil Aviation of the Philippines (CAAP) has coordinated with the various emergency responders in Negros Occidental Thursday, September 20, to map out emergency response actions in case a crash landing happens at the Bacolod-Silay Airport.
Efren Naragma, CAAP area manager for Area Center VI, said they are conducting these preparations not only in Bacolod but nationwide.
"We had this in Davao and in Iloilo in anticipation of an emergency crash landing. We are anticipating those same emergency scenarios will happen and how we can prevent that, we will do it by proper preparation," he said.
They first met on September 11 and will continue until October 26 in preparation for a full-scale emergency response exercise.
Those who attended the meeting were Negros Occidental Disaster Risk Reduction Management Division head Zeaphard Gerhart Caelian, the Philippine National Police, those in the medical services, communications, outside responders, airline representatives, and those in the airport operations.
They formulated a particular airport scenario where they can execute their full-scale exercise.
It was laid down what will be their course of action if there is an emergency crash landing, from the transmission of the communication as to what radio frequency to use in transmitting the message and who will respond first and so on.
The CAAP has its own emergency response plan but as to how to involve outside responders during an emergency is what they have discussed and will continue to discuss in their next meeting.
On September 11, they conducted airport-based basic life support training for the stakeholders, responders, and personnel.
They had a follow-up meeting on September 13 and a communication's procedure meeting held on Thursday.
On October 5, they will have an Aviation Security Orientation and Table Top exercises for the personnel in CAAP, medical services, communications (media) services, outside responders, airlines and operations.
The final tabletop exercise is set on October 18, full-scale exercise (dry run) on October 24 and full-scale exercise on October 26.