PRESQUE ISLE, Maine — The Northern Maine Regional Airport has not seen any really bad accidents in more than a decade, but responders in The County are prepared for the worst.
Emergency professionals from 25 different agencies completed a full-scale exercise Saturday, simulating a response to an airplane crash and spill of agricultural chemicals. The Federal Aviation Administration requires the hands-on exercise to be completed every third year.
Participating organizations this year included the Presque Isle fire and police departments, the Aroostook Medical Center and its Crown Ambulance Services, PenAir and the Aroostook HazMat Regional Response Team.
They practiced responding to a plane that had taken off, experienced mechanical issues, tried to turn around to land and then crashed at the northern end of the runway and exposed agricultural chemicals, which are sometimes stored in a building at the airport for fly-over crop treatment.
“In reality it very well could be, if an aircraft hit that building, that we are going to have chemical releases,” said Presque Isle Fire Chief Darrell White.
The pesticides and herbicides aren’t necessarily explosive, but they could pose risks to people in nearby neighborhoods or at the Northern Maine Community College.
“The biggest worry is some of them can be corrosive. More than anything they’re toxic, have inhalation dangers and are very irritating to the skin,” White said. “The other thing that would be of concern is several different chemicals together.”
In the event of an actual crash, the goal would be for the rescuers to arrive, identify the hazardous material release and the individual chemicals, and then determine the evacuation of passengers or injured people and the containment and cleanup of the materials — “not just drive right into the scene,” White said.
The Aroostook County Emergency Management Agency coordinated the exercise, which took place just outside of the airport’s runway. The Maine Department of Environmental Protection brought in a simulation tank, modelling valves and vents that leak and that responders have to plug.
In a “hotwash” evaluation after the exercise, leaders from the responding organizations and the Aroostook County Emergency Management Agency agreed that the exercise was mostly a success.
“Overall it went really well,” said Aroostook County EMA director Darren Woods.
The crews arrived, set up three safety zones around the perimeter, identified the hazardous materials and decided what kind of protection responders needed. Five actors representing crash victims were assessed and evacuated for treatment in a little under an hour.
There were some issues that evaluators noted to follow up on in the future. The hazardous material crew initially missed a label on the container, which would have “sped things up,” said Carl Allen, a leader of the hazmat response. One of the actors, simulating the role of a crash victim, also said that the mock-patient with the worst injuries should have been prioritized and transported away first.
The Northern Maine Regional Airport hosts the state’s second-largest commercial runway, but accidents are rare. In White’s 28 years at the Presque Isle Fire Department, there haven’t been any crashes of the magnitude that the exercise was preparing for. “I can’t recall many large aircrafts having an actual inbound emergency.”
Major commercial passenger airplanes, now serviced by PenAir, haven’t crashed in Presque Isle since 1962, according to Northern Maine Regional Airport Manager Scott Wardwell.
The last fatal airplane accident at the Northern Maine Regional Airport was in March 1998, when a twin-engine aircraft trying to land in foggy weather crashed in a forest near the runway and killed the two occupants.
