Kota Kinabalu: A helicopter flying from Kudat ferrying six people, including the pilot, made an emergency landing but crashed on the runway of Sabah Air's apron here on Thursday afternoon, all of which was part of an emergency drill exercise for Sabah Air Aviation (SAA) Sdn Bhd.Black smoke could be seen rising from the apron as a result of a "crash", which caused injuries to five passengers, and alerted the SAA Emergency Response Team (SAA ERT), Airport Fire Rescue Services (AFRS) and Fire and Rescue Department firefighters who were seen putting out the fire about 4pm.The one-hour mock incident was organised by SAA's Emergency Response Team (ERT) under Safety Department programme, in collaboration with Malaysia Airports Sdn Bhd (MASB) of Kota Kinabalu International Airport (KKIA).
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SAA Safety Manager Robert Sopining said the exercise was organised to fulfil the requirement of the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) and Department of Civil of Aviation (DCA).He said the drill is a partial emergency exercise that only involved SAA's response time to the situation.
Sopining said the main objective of conducting the exercise was to ensure the response time is timely and for SAA ERT to have accurate communication with AFRS and relevant government agencies that also have ERT."We have several types of emergency in the airport and our ERT needs to always be ready to respond to any kind of emergency situation.
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"This year, we organised the drill that involved a helicopter crash with six people suffering physical injuries whereby two men sustained 'light injuries' while four suffered 'serious injuries', including the pilot and a woman."In fact, this is a first drill for SAA in addressing a crash helicopter as in the past, we did emergency drills in our hangars," he said, adding that the exercise involved 30 personnel from various ERT agencies including SAA.
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Sopining said this to reporters when met at the SAA's hangar after the emergency drill exercise ended at 5pm.
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As soon as the "crash incident" happened, he said SAA ERT reacted immediately to the situation and implemented their emergency plans.Sopining said members of a referee panel consisting of the DCA, Fire and Rescue Department, police and QEH will evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency of the drill exercise and will suggest how to respond so as to find better ways in dealing with such disaster. - Hayati Dzulkifli
