Shortly after 10 a.m. Sept. 25, an alert came across the radio in a Great Falls International Airport law enforcement truck and over the loudspeaker in the Montana Air National Guard Fire Department.

The alert, which was to kickoff an exercise, was that the pilot of an incoming Boeing 737 was in medical distress.

MANG fire crews responded to the east end of the airfield initially in the exercise since it was expected the plane could land.

But, the scenario turned as the pilot had a seizure as the plane prepared to land, lost control of the aircraft and crashed at the far west end of the airfield where volunteers playing crash victims were strewn across a field.

City board recommends $300k in TIF funds for airport development

To add some realism to the exercise, airport crews placed pallets inside the burnt out helicopter fuselage on a concrete pad in the field that MANG firefighters quickly extinguished as other crews moved to assist crash victims.

In the exercise scenario, the crashed aircraft was a Canadian domestic flight that hadn’t intended to land within the U.S., so U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers based at the Great Falls airport, also responded to the incident.

Since the airport was operating normally during the exercise, mutual aid partners responding to the incident met at a rally point and were escorted by airport staff to the simulated crash site.

In a real world crash incident, Brian Cowles, deputy director for airport operations, said they’d close the airport so that emergency responders wouldn’t have to worry about traveling on an active airfield and cut those delays.

Two ambulances, one from Great Falls Emergency Services and one from Great Falls Fire Rescue respond quickly taking the patients who first responders triaged as “red” or the most critical, as crews from Ulm, Vaughn and Black Eagle volunteer fire departments arrived.

Man arrested for jumping airport fence, running on runway [2024]

Volunteers from Malmstrom Air Force Base, other federal employees and Great Falls Clinic staff played victims with tags describing their injuries so responders could triage and test their response.

After the first two ambulances left to transport patients to the hospital, crews were in a bit of a holding pattern waiting for the next wave of ambulances to arrive.

In the exercise, that time gap was about an hour.

Cowley said in a real world incident, they would call regional communities to request ambulance support, which would likely be on scene within about half an hour to create a steadier wave of patient transport.

Great Falls airport privatizing security screening [2022]

In the exercise scenario, the crashed plane had 142 passengers, three flight attendants, pilot and copilot.

The Great Falls Police Department and Cascade County Sheriff’s Office brought the command vehicle to the exercise and simulated providing traffic control, which would be their primary role in a real world airport crash incident, Cowles said.

In triaging mass casualty events, victims are typically categorized as red for the most critical, yellow for injuries that don’t necessarily need immediate care, and green for what are commonly referred to as the “walking wounded” or those with minor injuries.

In the event of a real world mass casualty event at the Great Falls airport, red victims would be transported to Benefis Health System, yellows to Great Falls Hospital and greens to Holman Aviation, which is at the eastern end of the airfield with its own parking area for medical evaluation, minor treatments and family reunification, Cowles said.

Airshow provided training opportunity for emergency planners [2017]

If Benefis was overwhelmed with critical patients, Cowles said Great Falls Hospital could also take red patients.

The airport conducts a live exercise every three years with different scenarios, but they often involve an aircraft crash of some kind, and officials conduct tabletop exercises in the intervening years.