Old methods

The private ambulances have been called to support the incident on the Timisoara Airport.

The aviation incident on Saturday in Timisoara was the first case of such gravity that the airport and county authorities had to deal with in the past 20 years.

Beyond the success of the operation, of a forced landing without victims, there are some serious hidden deficiencies of the intervention services, from poor endowment to management of such a real crisis situations. Three factors made it possible to keep those 51 people alive: the pilots' skill, the firefighters' courage and ... luck.

PRIVATE AMBULANCES
After 8:00 a.m., when the pilots announced the control tower about the problems of the front alighting-gear, firefighters, ambulances, the Police, the Riot Police as well as important county authorities appeared. The authorities on the ground had nearly 2 hours to find a solution for a relatively safe landing, as well as for the track. The conversations between the pilot and the control tower show that he imperatively asked for the foaming procedure right after he got rid of the kerosene. The pilot asked for the foam to be ready in 5 minutes, but the control tower asked for another 2 or 3 minutes in order to have the entire crisis formation ready. The Timis Ambulance service and SMURD sent almost all their ambulances to the airport. When they understood the pilot would make a forced landing, the authorities became desperate and called for the private ambulance services in the city, knowing that in case of a crash, the state's ambulances are too few for a number of 51 potential victims.

THE AUTHORITIES AND THE MARKET IMAGE
While the drivers of the ambulances and fire-fighting vehicles on the track received various orders, the gendarmes were concerned with keeping tens of journalists, camera operators and photographers at distance. The President of the Timiş County Council, Constantin Ostaficiuc, rushed on the track in a private SUV, although he has no task in such situations. Meanwhile, the Timiş prefect, Ovidiu Drăgănescu, was helpless witnessing the scene, far from the eyes of the press, which got to the track before him. We all have to thank the two pilots for avoiding a catastrophe, because they managed to control the trajectory of the aircraft and partially empty the tanks. "Even so, the friction with the track would have produced sparks, which could have resulted in an explosion. This is why we asked for a foam layer, the kind we use for putting fires out. It was the quickest solution we knew", General Mihai Benga, the commander of the Banat Emergency Situations Inspectorate, stated for us. The modern airports use other solutions in case the airplanes have to land without one of the alighting-gears. Gideon Ewers, spokesperson of the International Federation of the Aerial Pilots, said the foam was used for such incidents in 1940s and 1950s, to prevent an explosion. Such foaming agents are used very rarely in commercial aviation. It is unusual for nowadays to use the fireproof foam because the planes use fuels less volatile than gasoline, which is used for old planes."