On Friday, Innsbruck Airport carried out a regular emergency exercise under the project name "Albatros 22". It was simulated that a landing aircraft veered off the runway and then collided with a ground vehicle.

European airports have to train for emergencies at regular intervals. This year, in addition to Innsbruck, we also have Klagenfurt, Salzburg and Graz comparable emergency exercises carried out. The training session at Tyrolean Airport lasted around two hours on Friday and ended successfully around 21:15 p.m.

The exercise management at Innsbruck Airport designed this challenging scenario for this year's emergency exercise, the first after the pandemic, especially for the fire brigade and rescue teams.

Emergency exercises of this type are required by law for airports and are used to practice the defined operational plan, to train cooperation and communication between those involved and to check the coordination of the operation. This year it was also about testing a new call-out system for employees who are not at the airport in an emergency and who should be alerted.

A total of around 350 people were actively involved in the exercise. Thank you to all the volunteers who made themselves available as figurines or to support the emergency services in their free time. The routine cooperation between the blue light organizations - fire brigade, rescue service and police - and Innsbruck Airport was excellent during this emergency exercise and made a significant contribution to the successful completion of the trial operation.

“Emergency drills are an important tool to be prepared in the best possible way in the event of an emergency. You learn the most from mistakes that happen during an exercise. I would like to compliment everyone involved, the process went very well overall," emphasizes Patrick Dierich, Deputy Airport Director.

District Rescue Commander Red Cross Innsbruck, Christian Schneider, sums it up: "For the Red Cross, the spectacular exercise with almost 150 emergency services was perfect to give newly trained employees a better understanding of the processes involved in dealing with a large number of injured and affected people. In addition, there was the ideal opportunity for the specialists of the special operations groups to train the necessary management structures and special tasks to deal with such complex scenarios in cooperation with all organizations involved after the long pandemic break. The training goal was fully achieved.”

"Strengthening the cooperation between the different emergency organizations, familiarizing yourself with local conditions in the course of an emergency exercise and getting to know decision-makers (such as the crisis management team) can have an enormously positive effect on successful deployment in an emergency," says fire director Helmut Hager from the professional fire brigade Innsbruck finally.