Salisbury Airport hosts crash simulation to gain safety insight

SALISBURY, Md. – You rarely hear about airplane crashes, but at the Salisbury Regional Airport, a mock crash exercise was held to ensure if an emergency were to occur, emergency response is up to par.

Airport Director, Tony Rudy, said frequent strategy plan check-ins and hands on simulations are critical in training EMS, so they are prepared to respond to any type of scene.

“What the exercise does is helps us identify what we’re doing right what we may need to be working on. It’s a good opportunity for us to see what actually works and what might not work,” Rudy said.

“We’re required every year to review our airport emergency plan and then every three years we have to exercise that plan with a full-scale exercise,” Rudy added.

In Saturday’s exercise, Rudy cited the response time as being a strong suit, during the experience.

“I think the timing of the arrival was pretty typical of what we would see,” Rudy said. “That’s the bulk of our manpower, the ambulances, the rescue crews, the fire crews, water supply, things like that that we would need if we had a large crash.”

While the airport benefits greatly from these frequent exercises, Rudy said the public does as well, because they can rest assured that in case of an unprecedented event, their airport already has a plan in place.

“It is a federal requirement, but it’s also good for the public to know that we are prepared, and we do take this seriously and we’re practicing,” Rudy said.