Operation Low Key

The New York City Fire Department (FDNY) Bureau of Emergency Medical Services (EMS) holds a training exercise at New York’s La Guardia Airport, based around the scenario of a jet aircraft carrying about 150 passengers crashing at the end of the runway. [Academic Emergency Medicine, 3/2002; Kanarian, 2011, pp. 23] The exercise, called Operation Low Key, is an annual drill, which assesses the emergency preparedness response to aviation accidents at La Guardia Airport. [Kanarian, 2011, pp. 18]
Exercise Is Intended as Preparation for a Mass Casualty Incident – Before the exercise begins, its participants gather in a briefing room at the airport where Robert McCracken, chief of EMS operations, tells them the exercise is “an important drill for preparation for an aviation accident or a MCI [mass casualty incident].” The exercise commences when an announcement is made, informing participants that a “10-40”—a confirmed plane crash—has been reported at the airport. Participants in their emergency vehicles are then escorted across the runway by members of the Port Authority Police Department (PAPD). [Kanarian, 2011, pp. 21-23] (La Guardia Airport is run by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. [Reuters, 7/27/2015] )
Exercise Is Regarded as ‘a Job Well Done’ – The participants arrive at the scene of the simulated crash where there is a plane, and mock casualties are strewn around the runway. To the left, a fire is burning, simulating a burning aircraft. The firefighters and EMS personnel then carry out their response to the mock disaster as if they were responding to a real incident. At the end of the exercise, they gather in the PAPD building at the airport and discuss the day’s events. They are “complimented on a job well done,” according to Steve Kanarian, an FDNY paramedic who participates in the exercise. [Kanarian, 2011, pp. 23-25] La Guardia Airport is eight miles from midtown Manhattan in the borough of Queens, New York. [Bloomberg, 7/27/2015; Reuters, 7/27/2015] Another exercise is being held there today by the Red Cross, which is based around the scenario of a terrorist attack with a biological weapon (see September 8, 2001). [Philanthropy News Digest, 12/7/2001] Three days later, on September 11, FDNY EMS personnel will receive a real report of a “10-40” and subsequently respond to the crashes at the World Trade Center. [Fire Engineering, 9/2002; JEMS, 9/7/2011]