UPDATE: A mock training drill turned into a real life emergency at Albury Airport on Wednesday after a Qantas plane lost power to an engine.
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Emergency services had already been on scene for several hours when the plane touched down without incident after an emergency call about 11.35am.
None of the 38 people on board were injured, but the incident caused a mock exercise to be abandoned early and delays for passengers.
Aviation consultant Ray Oakley said emergency workers moved their attention from the unrelated mock incident to the real incident.
“It was an aircraft with an engine failure,” he said.
“One engine shut down.
“It was a normal landing, there was nothing major.”
Aside from the unexpected development, Mr Oakley said the mock exercise had gone well.
The scenario was that a bird had struck a plane, causing it to crash, skid off the runway and break in half with 30 people on board.
“It’s a mandatory requirement to have emergency exercises at certified aerodromes in Australia every two years,” he said.
“It’s part of the Civil Aviation Safety Authority’s regulation.
“We have to have field exercises to test the airport’s emergency plan.
“It tests the co-ordination between the emergency services responders.”
EARLIER: Relax, Border folk, we haven’t been invaded by zombies!
Despite some residents looking like the walking dead at Albury’s airport this morning, we’re happy to report it was all just a drill.
A state of mock emergency descended on the airport on Wednesday as staff and emergency services conducted a drill to fine-tune their response skills.
In a dry-run designed to test the Albury Airport Emergency Plan, crews dealt with a fictitious scenario wherein a passenger aircraft has skidded off the runway after multiple bird strikes.
Buses represented the aircraft’s fuselage and volunteers, complete with make-up, acted as injured passengers.
