Africa-Press – Uganda. The Uganda Civil Aviation Authority has said it Entebbe International Airport is fully prepared to handle any emergencies in case they happen.
On Friday, UCCA carried out a full-scale drill to test readiness of the airport in case of an emergence.
The drill simulated an Embraer aircraft with 95 passengers on board and five crews crashing adjacent to the runway and catching fire.
In the simulated exercise, 26 people died and 33 were injured, prompting an emergence operation in which 41 people were rescued and taken to various hospitals around Entebbe and Kampala.
Addressing journalists following the conclusion of the exercise, UCAA Director General, Fred Bamwesigye said the success of the exercise has shown readiness of Entebbe Airport to handle such emergencies, in case they happen.
“It helped us simulate emergence plans, procedures, communication frame works, response timelines and coordination abilities. These things we are talking about( during the drills) happen in real life many areas. We are not inventing something that has never happened elsewhere. We don’t want it to happen and we fumble. We are trying to check ourselves how we can handle them without panicking and failing to do anything,” Bamwesigye said.
He said after the exercise, the stakeholders will now convene for a debrief and discuss areas where they have performed well, but also highlight those where they underperformed to ensure improvement is made.
“Through feedback got in the debrief exercise, we will get different points of views and assessment. Where we are wanting, we must out to address the issues other than waiting for the real situation to say we should have done like this.”
According to UCAA, over 600 participants from 60 entities participated in the mock drills.
The last drill of a similar magnitude was done in 2023, as such exercises according to ICAO are supposed to be done after every two years.
The Director Airports and Aviation Security at UCAA, Eng. Ayub Sooma said there were observers from neighbouring countries and airports who after the drills, will critic the exercise and make a report.
“This is an auditable exercise by ICAO,” he said.
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