Response to Gander plane crash 'as good as it can get', says airport boss
The President and CEO of the Gander International Airport Authority believes the response time to Wednesday night's plane crash was "as good as it can get."
"Would we like to have been faster? Absolutely. Could it have practically been faster? I'm not confident it can," said Reg Wright on Friday.
"The bottom line is that no one went to get donuts on the way to this scene. We deployed as quickly as we could, as expediently as we could, and with everything we had available," he told CBC's On the Go.
An Air Canada Express Beechcraft 1900 plane operated by Exploits Valley Air Services (EVAS) crashed into the runway April 20 during what a meteorologist with Environment Canada in Gander called a "blizzard."
Fourteen people were on board. Three were sent to the hospital as a precaution, and others have told CBC they thought they were going to die as the plane shook and a propeller broke through a window.
Some passengers on the flight from Happy Valley-Goose Bay to Gander have also complained about the response time.
Kris Ralph said he and others waited on the tarmac for about 20 minutes for help to arrive.
Poor weather a factor
Wright said he's proud of his airport's response.
"You go through an incident like that and you're out there in the weather, I'm assuming every minute is an hour," he said.
"It takes time, and that was of course compounded by the fact that the weather was so poor."
Wright said the weather made it difficult to find the aircraft on the runway. The crash site is a few kilometres from the terminal.
"In a situation like this - first off you have to locate the aircraft because the tower doesn't know because it can't see, nor do we," said Wright.
He said emergency crews also have to be cautious and aware that passengers may be walking on the runway.
"And you can't proceed at great speed toward such a situation because you don't know where the passengers are. There have been incidents at airports where injuries or deaths have happened because emergency response vehicles were too hasty in proceeding towards the situation."
Wright said he takes his hat off to the first responders.
"We did throw every resource we had at it. An initial truck arrived immediately and two further crash trucks and every pick up truck and staff we could summon in the field to aid in the recovery," said Wright.
Wright said the airport will do a full debrief and review of the response.