Fiery plane training seems plenty real

The heat was intense, the smoke was blinding and there was little room to maneuver, but firefighters saved a crash victim trapped inside a burning Boeing 737 near Blue Grass Airport on Sunday.

“You had a good time, guys — seven minutes,” instructor C.J. Tackett yelled to the firefighters as they left the plane after the training exercise.

There was no crash and no one was hurt, except for a trainee who came down with heat exhaustion. The rescue occurred in a steel tube as big as a 737 that sits at a hilltop training facility just west of the Lexington airport.

The 22 firefighters from nine fire departments were taking a class in aircraft firefighting during the 79th Annual Kentucky State Fire School. The training also included dousing engine and tire fires.

Although no crash occurred, the propane fire inside the huge tube was very real to those who had to go inside and find a “dummy” victim.

“You’ve got fear,” despite the heavy protective clothing and special breathing devices, said Madison County firefighter Tim Gray. “Anybody who isn’t afraid doesn’t need to be in there. Fear is what keeps you alive.”

“It’s all adrenaline,” agreed Jason Curry, another Madison County firefighter. “You want to do the right thing and you’ve got to do it fast. Training helps you do it.”

Jessamine County firefighter Nick “Lucky” Baldwin joked that it was “a hot class,” a reference both to the popularity of the course and to the heat.

The outside temperature was about 80 degrees. Inside the tube, it could be 1,200 degrees near the floor where firefighters try to stay, and up to 2,500 degrees near the ceiling.

Inside the firefighter’s protective clothing, “you would be warm, but you would be able to do the job,” said Leroy Richardson, training coordinator for Blue Grass Airport’s Department of Public Safety.

Firefighters are encouraged, and sometimes required, to take the aircraft firefighting class, even if there’s not a major airport in their area, Richardson said.

About 80 percent of all crashes occur within 10 miles of an airport. And more Kentucky counties are getting airports, including many small, privately owned facilities.

“So far, I’ve worked three crashes in Scott County,” which does not have a major airport, said Blue Grass Airport Sgt. Carl Faulconer, an instructor at the fire school.

In addition, Baldwin and other firefighters noted that Jessamine and other counties have mutual-aid agreements with Fayette County. That means their firefighters could become involved in a major disaster, such as the August 2006 crash of Comair Flight 5191 that killed 49.

Richardson said most firefighters are trained to battle “structure fires,” like those in houses or business buildings, but “it’s a whole different ball game inside there (an airplane) than it is with a structure fire.”

One big difference is that in a house, there is room for a firefighter wearing an air tank and other gear to move around. In an aircraft, the aisles between seats might be just 18 inches wide.

That’s why the seven-minute rescue by an inexperienced team was greeted with such encouragement by instructor Tackett, a lieutenant in the Lexington Fire Department.

“They were challenged,” he explained later. “They had the victim wadded up and they had to do some extrication.”

The average rescue time is four or five minutes, he added. “We had one team that did it in three, but they were the most experienced.”

WC911 National Fire and Rescue News source - By Jim Jordan / Kentucky.com