Written by Erwin Chege:
Manhattan Regional Airport held its triennial Emergency Response Drill on Wednesday. The drill involved emergency service employees from all over the state; each group coming to the Manhattan Regional Airport for the sole purpose of training to save lives.
Airport Director Jesse Romo has been at Manhattan Regional Airport for roughly two years, and in that time, he’s seen his fair share of eventful incidents.
“We’ve been on alert before for potential incidents, luckily we’ve not had to have any response,” Romo stated. “Last summer an American Eagle aircraft carrier had a hydraulic failure issue. We’ve also had some general aviation aircrafts that have lost an engine or lost control, a mechanical failure issue of some sort”.
Although the training doesn’t occur on an annual basis, Romo says it is still a requirement for the airport. 
“We’re required by federal regulation to do this every three years,” Romo said. “So, this is a full-scale exercise. Every year though, we do tabletop, walkthrough, and exercises, to talk through exercises like this so that way when we do full scale, we can run through them pretty quick and have no hiccups. The whole thought process behind doing emergency planning is making sure that you are prepared for an unfortunate incident that could occur”.
Prior to the exercise, first responders from multiple agencies met inside the airport administration building to be debriefed on the upcoming drill.
“We have the City of Manhattan Fire Department Station Four here,” said Romo. “They do our aircraft rescue and firefighting, but if there was an aircraft incident that came in, many agencies would respond: RCPD, highway patrol, Emergency Management Services from Riley county, EMS, and a bunch of others”
As emergency responders did their assigned tasks, airport staff worked to secure the perimeter and assist the emergency response teams in any way they can.
“You have a structure in place,” Romo said. “All those things get worked out as part of coordination and effort. That’s something we agreed to in advanced. And depending on what the nature of the incident is, you mentioned tornado before, or if it’s a large aircraft crash. We could need multiple PIO’s and there could be updates around the clock, or multiple media platforms.”
Pictured is a photo of the fuselage that they used for training. Along with the fake burnt fuselage, dummies were scattered on the ground, acting as “dead bodies” to assist in the search and rescue training.
Any patrons concerned about what would happen in a crisis, don’t need to worry. It’s clear, Manhattan Airport is in good hands.