The port master’s office of Mazara del Vallo – coast guard coordinated a complex exercise concerning the emergency ditching of an aircraft off the coast of Mazara and the consequent fire of the aircraft at sea.
The aim of the exercise was to test the operational readiness and response capacity to events of this type by involving all interested parties including, in addition to the coast guard, the military air force, the financial police, the firefighters, the Italian Red Cross and the volunteer military corps.
The need to deal with scenarios such as the one covered by the complex exercise entails the need to prepare complex sea rescue, land assistance and defense of the coastal environment services, to be activated according to the evolution of the emergency and requires, therefore, the constant monitoring of the level of operational readiness of the competent bodies and the effective response capacity of the anti-pollution resources, especially through the execution of periodic exercises.
The start of the exercise with the reported emergency
The exercise began at 11am, when the Trapani-Birgi control tower informed the operations room of the coast guard of Mazara del Vallo of an emergency on board an aircraft departing from Pantelleria and heading to Trapani, thus activating the SAR organisation, ready to intervene in the event of ditching to rescue the occupants of the aircraft.
Recovery operations
For the recovery operations, under the coordination of the coast guard, the SAR CP 849 patrol boat was used at sea. Initially, in the simulation, 7 of the 8 people on board the aircraft were rescued, while one was missing . The recovered castaways were brought ashore at the “RUGGERO II” quay of the Porto Nuovo, where waiting for them were medical personnel and volunteers from the Italian Red Cross and the voluntary military corps, ready to provide first aid to the unfortunates who had reported some trauma and burns.
Putting out the fire
While the SAR CP 849 patrol boat, with fire brigade personnel and fire extinguishing equipment on board together with the Trapani VF05 fire brigade patrol boat, was busy extinguishing the fire developed by the aircraft, the financial police patrol boat of Mazara del Vallo G212 began the search operations at sea for the shipwrecked man.
The search for the missing person and his recovery
Once the fire was extinguished, the CP 849 patrol boat also began its search operations at sea for the missing person. The exercise ended with its recovery.
The complex exercise carried out made it possible to test the response capacity of the emergency assets available locally and to refine the operational synergies of all the forces in the field, under the coordination of the Port Authority Corps, to which the law entrusts the management of such emergencies at sea, to protect human life and the marine and coastal environment.
