Juneau’s airport is going to be a disaster scene on Saturday — on purpose
- Mark Sabbatini
- Jul 25
- 4 min read
Updated: Jul 25
More than 100 emergency response officials and volunteers will participate in simulated plane crash as training exercise
Emergency responders know there’s going to be a disastrous plane crash at Juneau International Airport on Saturday morning — but not critical details such as what it will crash into, who will be hurt and what kind of hazards they’ll be facing.
So what those responders do want to know — both during Saturday’s pre-arranged simulation of a disaster and therefore real ones that occur in the future — is what their plan of action is during the first minute, five minutes, 15 minutes and beyond.
The simulation will involve emergency response officials from several local entities as well as more than 100 people volunteering as victims, grieving family members and other civilians likely to be present during a real crash. It is scheduled from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and will include a live-fire exercise meant to simulate a burning plane — so people within sight of the airport should expect to see visible flames and black smoke during that time.
"The overall objectives on my end is to strengthen Juneau's resilience to any emergency," Andres Delgado, the airport’s maintenance and operations superintendent, told emergency response agency supervisors during a July 17 "tabletop exercise" meant to give participants a sense of what the live simulation will be like. "That could be anything from a mass casualty event to a shooting incident in the terminal to someone trying to bypass security (where) they make it to the departure lounge and cause all sorts of havoc. It could be a hijacking attempt. It could be a bomb threat. It could be anything."
It’s also important to evaluate the readiness of the airport and other facilities, even under less-than-ideal circumstances, Delgado said.
"We know there are gaps in resources," he said. "We know there are challenges and there are struggles, and there are short-staffing issues and funding issues, and equipment issues just about every day of the week."
"Well, sorry — emergencies are never convenient. They're never timed perfectly. It's always more than likely it's just going to happen on the worst day of the week. So the day that everyone is out sick, that your mechanic is out, that the fire trucks aren't in service, and there's no way you can reach the mechanic because he's in Wisconsin or wherever."
Participants in the tabletop exercise responded to two disaster scenarios — details of which everyone present (including the author of this story) agreed not to disclose, even though Saturday’s scenario will be different.
"The idea of the full-scale exercise is to keep it as organic as possible," Delgado said. "So while it is staged and planned quite well, we try to keep it a surprise for the volunteers so that they can act a part and so that we can respond as we would."
The scenarios involved a set of "core objectives" such as a response by the airport’s Aircraft Rescue and Fire Fighting (ARFF) unit within three minutes of the crash, an incident command post set up within five minutes, and staging areas and communications between responding agencies established within 10 minutes.
Lead officials at the response agencies — including the airport, Capital City Fire/Rescue, City and Borough of Juneau, and Bartlett Regional Hospital — were asked what they were doing during those and other specific-minute intervals to provide a well-coordinated response.
For Saturday’s live simulation the volunteers are scheduled to show up for their preparatory work at 7:30 a.m. at Gate B at the airport’s snow removal equipment building, Delgado said.
"We'll have them walk in, get checked in, get through makeup applied, moulaged applied and then we ferry them over to the (simulation) area," he said.
All of the victims are expected to be "staged" by 9:45 a.m., with the exercise beginning 15 minutes later after leaders get their own briefing.
There are certain practical limits to exercise — Delgado said the volunteer victims won’t be placed in the live-fire area since "we don't want them on fire."
Also, one of the ambulances officials hoped to use on Saturday as part of the drill won’t be available. But in a sense that mimics real-life limitations of Juneau’s emergency medical facilities that organizers are implementing during the exercise. Since there are dozen of victims, for instance, most will be moved to a holding area for examination and determining which are the highest priority for transport to Bartlett Regional Hospital.
"If a bus shows up dropping victims off at your hospital we have screwed up because it should be nothing but ’A notes’ going to you," Brandon Bagwell, CCFR’s aircraft rescue and firefighting chief, told a hospital official during the desktop drill. "Those ‘green’ (label) victims, those 60 victims, should not be going to the facility because in real life we're not going to overrun her. They would be the ones that would go to other places around."
Simulations for a variety of scenarios are conducted regularly by emergency responders in Juneau, often in collaboration with state, tribal and federal agencies. Among those are a U.S. National Guard-led four-day series of simulated terrorist attacks in June at locations that included the Alaska State Capitol, an avalanche rescue exercise in Lemon Creek took place in March of 2024 and a previous simulated major plane crash at the airport in July of 2022.
Among the many instructions Delgado gave participants during the tabletop exercise earlier this month was to "practice situational awareness" on Saturday.
"There was an instance in the last go-round where an inflatable dummy was run over by an ARFF truck," he said
• Contact Mark Sabbatini at editor@juneauindependent.com or (907) 957-2306.
