ROANOKE, Va. – Thick smoke, flames, and first responders at Roanoke-Blacksburg Regional Airport might alarm travelers, but this time it’s all part of a critical training drill.
This live burn training is a high-intensity, FAA-regulated exercise held once a year to prepare crews for emergencies they hope never happen.
ROA Public Safety Chief Ben Cook said, “We are able to train with our equipment and with our staff and other staff. Fortunately, we do not have an aircraft incident all the time, so we HAVE to be prepared for anything we come across. We train hard especially for scenarios that you don’t encounter every day, and this is one of these times that we are able to train and do something we hope we never have to put to real use.”
The drill uses a life-size aircraft simulator with built-in flames and thick smoke to mimic the chaos of a real aviation emergency.
Cook added, “We can actually put passengers in here and simulate rescuing a passenger from here, got the overhead bins just like in a regular aircraft. Trying to simulate as much as possible.”
This realism helps crews stay sharp for real emergencies.
“It makes you fully aware of the environment that you are in because it’s going to be smokey, it’s going to be dark, it’s going to be cramped and once we put the mannequins in here and you try to rescue somebody it really gets tight,” Cook said.
Chad Riddleberger, Virginia Department of Fire Programs special operations division chief, said, “We want to be prepared for someone’s worst day and this type of training is obviously high risk, low frequency.”
If travelers or locals see fire or smoke at the airport again on July 30 or between August 6 and 8, they should not be alarmed. It means first responders are sharpening their skills, preparing for the worst so they can deliver the best. The training activities will not impact flights arriving into or departing from ROA.