Don’t worry, Golden Triangle. It wasn’t a real emergency Tuesday morning at the Golden Triangle Regional Airport. It was just a drill.
The emergency preparedness exercise began around 8 a.m. According to Kathy Kenne, public information officer for the drill, the fictional crash occurred when a Delta airplane and an Air Force plane collided in midair. The Air Force plane immediately went down, Kenne said, and the pilot ejected himself from the aircraft and landed nearby. The commercial aircraft sputtered and landed on the runway of the airport before crashing into an American Eurocopter helicopter, Kenne said.
The three-airplane-two-crash event left 18 East Mississippi Community College student participants lying on the ground and caused at least 15 emergency response agencies from around the region to race to the scene.
Mike Hainsey, GTRA executive director, called the exercise “a success.”
“There were really no major problems,” he said at the conclusion.
“This whole exercise is about saving lives.”
Around 100 people participated in the exercise, Hainsey said, and the airport is required every three years to do a field exercise.
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