More than 150 emergency response personnel from 15 organizations took part in the 2022 LAX Air Exercise (AirEx), a full-scale simulation designed to test Los Angeles International Airport’s (LAX’s) readiness to respond to an aircraft accident on the airfield.
The objective of the exercise on April 19 was to evaluate the operational capability and readiness of LAX’s incident management and emergency response system in a real-time environment in which people, equipment and materials are mobilized and deployed.
“Safety and security are paramount at LAX, and this triannual exercise is a chance to bring together many of our stakeholders and agency partners to practice a real time, full-scale, coordinated response to a major emergency,” said Justin Erbacci, Chief Executive Officer, Los Angeles World Airports (LAWA). “We have some of the finest first responders in the world, including our very own Airport Police and Los Angeles Fire Department, as well as our other city, county and federal partners, and we thank them and our other participants for working together to make LAX the leader in airport safety.”
About 150 volunteers role-played accident victims, including many in moulage – special effects makeup applied to simulate injuries. The exercise was monitored by a number of experienced evaluators, and more than 100 observers also were on hand to learn from the large-sale training. Among the observers were representatives of dozens of airlines and airport stakeholders, as well as the U.S. State Department and the consulates of 13 nations, including the United Kingdom, Canada, Hungary, Italy, Poland, South Africa, Spain, Thailand, Japan, Mexico, Australia, Argentina and Austria.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) requires the unrehearsed exercise to be conducted by LAWA at least once every three years. LAWA officials will use information gathered during the exercise to help further refine emergency response plans at LAX.
Organizations represented at the April 19 exercise included LAWA, the Los Angeles City, Los Angeles County and El Segundo Fire Departments; Los Angeles County Coroner’s Office; Federal Bureau of Investigation; FAA; U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the U.S. Coast Guard.
