Mumbai airport ties up with Cathay Pacific for disaster preparedness drill

MUMBAI: Mumbai airport on Thursday tied up with Hong Kong's Cathay Pacific Airways in an exercise to test its preparedness for aircraft disaster scenarios.

"The four - hour long exercise helped in assessing and evaluating the preparedness of all response teams involved in the drill including stakeholders at CSIA involved in handling aircraft emergency situations. This exercise provided an opportunity to response teams from CSIA's various safety units, including Fire & Emergency services, Terminals, Airside Operations, Engineering & Maintenance, Security and Medical services, to put their emergency training and skills to test. The mock drill also helped to measure the preparedness of local emergency response units that assist MIAL during a crisis," said a statement.

Around 10 major hospitals that included Leelavati, Nanavati, Seven Hills, Kokilaben Ambani, 16 Ambulance services and Government organizations such as Immigration, Customs, CISF, Police and State Disaster Management Cell participated in the drill.

To add a sense of reality to the exercise, over 800 volunteers acted as meeters/greeters, injured passengers and flight crew.

According to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) regulations, it is mandatory for all airports and airlines globally to hold this kind of exercise once every two years.