The crash rescue trucks are staffed by airport operations personnel. The rigs are often driven around the airport as the operations staff attend to their normal responsibilities. The airport has to meet FAA standards which I believe is getting water on a fire at any point of the airfiled within 90 seconds. They are dispatched by the airport on duty operations manager and the air traffic controllers in the tower. The tower I believe has a direct line to 60-Control which is used to request additional assistance from the nighboring departments. Additionally all of the rigs have radios for communication with 60-Control as well. Minimal staffing is one person per apparatus.
This type of response operation is in place all over the country. Most regional airports like Westchester don't have full time 24/7 ARFF personnel waiting for something to happen. The FAA sets the response equirements based on the number of flights and the size of the airplanes that utilize the airport.
To clear up a few items...
Airport Ops/ARFF has 3 minutes to get the first rig to the scene of an incident, 4 minutes for the second truck. Obviously the airfield isn't as large as most commercial airports, and response times on the field are fast. The 60-Control trunk radios in the rigs are the main means of communication with 60-Control, and it is the responsibility of the Duty Supervisor/Chief to hail 60-Control to declare an alert, which activates the airport emergency response plan. The Ops department is notified of emergencies via a few routes: the air traffic control tower has a direct line to the Ops department, pilots can notify Ops via the Unicom frequency or by telephone, or NY TRACON will call Ops via telephone.
As for staffing, HPN has a minimal staffing of 4 firefighters (2 per rig) weekdays 0700-1900, and 3 firefighters during nights and weekends
in Photos
Posted
To clear up a few items...
Airport Ops/ARFF has 3 minutes to get the first rig to the scene of an incident, 4 minutes for the second truck. Obviously the airfield isn't as large as most commercial airports, and response times on the field are fast. The 60-Control trunk radios in the rigs are the main means of communication with 60-Control, and it is the responsibility of the Duty Supervisor/Chief to hail 60-Control to declare an alert, which activates the airport emergency response plan. The Ops department is notified of emergencies via a few routes: the air traffic control tower has a direct line to the Ops department, pilots can notify Ops via the Unicom frequency or by telephone, or NY TRACON will call Ops via telephone.
As for staffing, HPN has a minimal staffing of 4 firefighters (2 per rig) weekdays 0700-1900, and 3 firefighters during nights and weekends