Chopper down! Eustis first responders participate in MARE

Photo By Wesley Farnsworth | (Left to right) Bryon Anthony, incident operations chief, Scott Zrakovi, incident commander, and Michael Collins, incident safety officer, discuss their plans at the incident command post during a major accident response exercise at Felker Army Airfield at Fort Eustis, Va., Sept. 12, 2012. First responders at Fort Eustis reacted and responded to a downed helicopter as part of this exercise.  

FORT EUSTIS, VA, UNITED STATES

09.12.2012

Story by Senior Airman Jason Brown 

Joint Base Langley-Eustis

FORT EUSTIS, Va. -- A military helicopter goes down on an active airfield, spewing flaming fuel and smoke and trapping flight crew inside. Every second counts, as lives hang in the balance.

Fortunately, this scenario is fictional. Nevertheless, the first responders at Fort Eustis, Va. reacted and responded as if it were truly happening, testing their knowledge and proficiency during a major accident response exercise, or MARE, at Felker Army Airfield Sept. 12.

The MARE was the first rotary-wing crash exercise performed by the 633rd Air Base Wing at Fort Eustis since becoming a joint base in 2010. Approximately 50 personnel, including emergency responders, command and control representatives, and U.S. Navy safety personnel participated.

The scenario began with an U.S. Navy H-60 helicopter crashing at the slope area at Felker with four crew members on board. From there, firefighters and security forces reacted to perform fire suppression, rescue and recovery, and crash site security. The Emergency Operations Center activated, providing the C2 communication element to manage the operation and keep information flowing.

"It tested our ability to respond and recover with command and control nodes, first response nodes, and with the cooperation of other emergency responders," said Mark Atlow, the 633rd ABW emergency management exercise coordinator. "In this kind of situation, we all need to work together and fire on all cylinders."

Danger was not limited to the site of the crash. Responders exercised risk mitigation tactics and observe possible threats to the surrounding environment. In this scenario, fire department and airfield management personnel reacted to a plume of toxic smoke rising from the crash site and traveling toward the nearby Pines Golf Course. According to Jim Langley, the fire department's assistant chief, responders had to understand how wind direction and speed would influence the path of the smoke, know who to alert and when to evacuate the surrounding area in case of a threat.

Additionally, keeping track of contaminants, such as leaking fuel and oil, enabled crash recovery technicians to prevent these elements from reaching the nearby environment, which is ripe with wetlands and waterways.

Atlow said the exercise is built around a series of requirements that need to be met in the case of a real-world situation. Nearly four months of planning and fine-tuning went into creating a realistic set of circumstances to engage and challenge the various participants.

"We have overall objectives that we want to see met. We'll look at each individual objective, as well as each unit's secondary and tertiary objectives underneath," Atlow explained. "From there we complete an after-action report to see how we met or did not meet our objectives, with recommendations for improvements."

While the exercise is a part of routine EM requirements and training, Atlow said it is more than just "checking boxes."

"We like seeing what we did well, but most importantly, we exercise to see what processes are broken and how we can fix it. We find risks we may have and mitigate them as much as possible," he said. "That way, if something happens for real, we're not stuck wondering 'how do we do this?'"

• Date Taken: 09.12.2012
• Date Posted: 09.13.2012 09:50
• Story ID: 94650
• Location: FORT EUSTIS, VA, US