The Civil Aviation Authority carried out a mock Boeing 777 plane crash at King Abdul Aziz International Airport (KAAIA) in Jeddah Tuesday night as part of the job for emergency responders. The exercise started with an emergency call from the pilot to the traffic controllers at KAAIA to make an emergency landing after fire caught one of the tires. While in the air and about 500 meters from the runway, the plane with 109 passengers on board crashed and caught fire. In full swing, the emergency and security teams rushed to the scene of the crash. Some passengers survived the crash while some bodies were scattered over a radius of five kilometers in the Heraa and Industrial Zone areas in north Jeddah. Survivors with various injuries were either flown or loaded up onto ambulances to King Fahd Hospital and the Military Hospital. This annual mock plane crash is a great opportunity to get all the emergency responders work together in a training environment where things can be tested, said Khaled Al-Khaibari, director of Public Relations at the Civil Aviation Authority.
