Fire officer tells of rescue from ‘cramped’ plane

A SENIOR officer with Cork City Fire Brigade described the plane as “extremely cramped” as he and emergency services set about rescuing passengers from the plane crash.

It was 9.56am when the call came through to the Munster Regional Communication Centre in Limerick that there was an incident at Cork Airport.

Across Cork city and county, all emergency teams were ordered to make it to the airport — on a hill just about 3km from the city centre — as fast as possible.

The crash had taken place just four minutes earlier but in that time Cork Airport Fire Brigade had successfully extinguished the fire. The order to city and county fire brigades was to bring cutting equipment.

About 35 fire brigade crew members made for the scene as did another 35 gardaí as well as traffic corps units who had to close off regular access to the airport.

There was five units of Cork City Fire Brigade and three county crews from Carrigaline, Bandon and Ballincollig dispatched to the scene.

Nine crewed ambulances were already in situ as well as four advanced paramedic teams.

By 10.18, the county major emergency plan had been activated.

Foam had been sprayed throughout the airplane as a team of more than 60 firemen from Cork city and county, gardaí, airport police and paramedics implemented the airport emergency plan they practice at least every two months.

As the fire services entered the plane, an odour of aviation fuel hung in the air but there was sufficient light to see what they were doing.

The emergency services say it wasn’t smoky on board the plane when the outside crews arrived but it was the plane’s upside down position and the sogginess of the surrounding grass that caused the most problems with removing passengers and transferring equipment onto the aircraft, said Cork City Fire Brigade Third Officer Declan O’Shea.

The ground around the plane was so wet, it took up to seven officers to remove one stretcher from the aircraft to a nearby ambulance.

“The fire was extinguished when we arrived. The request from the airport fire service was for cutting equipment to gain access to the actual fuselage itself so that was our priority once we got there,” he said.

“The airport police had gained entry already but due to the cramped conditions in the aircraft, we made entry points at other locations. Everyone was just focusing on the emergency,” he said.

The technical knowledge of Cork Airport fire service was vital, the emergency services said.

“They knew details about the aircraft construction, where was the most appropriate place to cut, where maybe to remove a seat. We made a secondary entry point along the fuselage at one point so that there were more entry and exit points.

“In pre-planning, we had done this time and time again. We were on first name terms with all the airport officers. We all knew exactly what we were doing”.

Most of the passengers were removed from the crashed plane within an hour. There was up to four or five emergency officers on the plane, at any one time, with the team rotating as another person was successfully taken from the scene and to Cork University Hospital.

“It was a tough job but everyone was working together and that was what made the operation seamless. We all knew each others capabilities,” said Officer O’Shea.