Report exposes Tinson Pen response failure after plane crash fire
Published:Thursday | March 28, 2019 | 12:00 AM
Damion Mitchell, Integration Editor
An investigation into the November 2016 flight-school plane crash has exposed a weak emergency-response protocol at the Tinson Pen Aerodrome in Kingston.
The Caribbean Aviation Training Centre-owned Cessna aircraft crashed in the adjoining community of Greenwich Town seconds after take-off, bursting into flames on impact and killing instructor Jonathan Worton and student pilot Danshuvar Gilmore.
Another student pilot, Ramone Forbes, died in hospital hours later.
READ: Report reveals crashed flight school plane was fitted with wrong, malfunctioning parts
The crash site is less than a kilometre from the aerodrome.
But according to the investigation report, it took roughly one hour for the Tinson Pen Aerodrome to respond with the appropriate foam tender that is capable of extinguishing aircraft fires.
Instead, the airport protection assistant set off on foot through the aerodrome’s perimeter fence to the crash scene out of concern that the foam tender was not licensed to travel on the public road.
The assistant carried two handheld extinguishers and a crash axe.
But, according to the crash investigators, the handheld extinguishers were ineffective.
By the time the airport protection assistant arrived at the crash scene, firefighters from the Jamaica Fire Brigade had covered a distance of four kilometres and had been trying to put out the blaze for five minutes using Class A foam.
But this type of foam was also ineffective as it is to be used to put out fires on wood and paper.
Fifty-six minutes later, the appropriate foam tender from Tinson Pen finally arrived at the crash site under police escort and within five minutes extinguished the blaze using Class B foam made to put out aircraft fire.
Timeline
1:34 pm - Tinson Pen Aerodrome Airport and Rescue and Fire Fighting Service notified of fire.
1:34 pm - York Park Fire Station responds to fire.
1: 46 pm - Jamaica Fire Brigade, York Park arrives at the scene. Assistance later arrived from Trench Town and Rollington Town
1:50 pm - Airport and Rescue and Fire Fighting Service at Tinson Pen positions foam tender at eastern end of runway and an airport protection assistant travelled on foot to crash scene.
2:30 pm - Foam tender escorted to the crash site and extinguished the blaze in five minutes.
Who was responsible?
Crash investigators have blamed the Tinson Pen Aerodrome for the emergency response failure.
Citing Section 3 of the aerodrome’s emergency manual, they said that the crash was within the response zone.
"In the event of an aircraft accident off the airport but within the 5km radius of the aerodrome beacon, the KTP (international aviation code for Tinson Pen Aerodrome) has the responsibility to coordinate the rescue operations," they said.
Accidents occurring outside this boundary are responded to as stipulated by the Jamaica Civil Aviation Authority by the senior director of operations at the Norman Manley International Airport.
However, investigators found that there was no person approved for the positions of either director of maintenance or chief inspector at the time of the accident.
They also found that the Tinson Pen Aerodrome foam tender was not registered to travel on public roads, and so approval was sought from the operations officer for it to be dispatched to the crash site.
It was the operations officer, while at the crash site, who eventually asked the police to escort the foam tender from Tinson Pen to the location to extinguish the blaze.
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