Satallite image of massive hurricane just east of the Mexican eastern seaboard

Airline Emergency / Crisis Response Planning

– Natural Disaster –

Introduction

‘Natural Disaster’ is an appropriate title, as the subject here relates to the disastrous (catastrophic) consequences of an act of nature on certain types of flight operations

By ‘disastrous’ we can typically be referring to any of (the list is not exhaustive):

  • Large (to extremely large) numbers of fatalities, injuries, missing persons etc.
  • Significant / entire destruction of vital infrastructure and resources
  • Overwhelming inability to respond effectively, efficiently and humanely
  • Severe limitations on commerce (including many aspects of  aviation)
  • Adverse (in the extreme) economic consequences

By ‘act of nature’ we typically include (the list is not exhaustive):

  • Earthquake
  • Hurricane (also known as ‘typhoon’, ‘tropical cyclone’ etc.)
  • Volcanic eruption *
  • Tsunami
  • Widespread flooding (not associated with any of the above)
  • Widespread fire
  • Drought
  • Tornado
  • Pandemic **

* The economic and commercial aspects of volcanic ash cloud disruption on aviation related operations are covered in the ‘aviation business continuity‘ section of this website

** Whilst pandemic (infectious) disease may be considered by some to be a form of natural disaster – the subject is treated separately in this website by having a specific webpage dedicated to ‘public health crisis‘

Relevance to Aircraft Operators

This webpage typically targets aircraft operators whose prime business model is the transport of passengers as part of a ‘package holiday’ (latter generally include flights and accommodation [plus possibly other services] booked together – and are usually marketed by tour operators and / or travel agents). The typical natural disaster of concern to such operators relates to  hurricanes (otherwise known e.g. as typhoon, severe tropical cyclone etc.)

Package Holiday / Vacation (Tour Operator) Type Flight Operations

Use of a ‘real-life’ example might best explain what this website page is about:

‘…………… Airline ‘X’ is a UK based package holiday operator (fully owned by a ‘parent’ tour operator / vacation company) serving destinations worldwide, including the Caribbean (parts of which are hurricane prone for a major part of each year)

In 200x a category 5 (highest intensity) hurricane was predicted to transit over the Bahamas island of Nassau. The airline (or, more correctly, its parent Tour Operator company) had large numbers of package holiday customers on the island at the time

The decision was taken to have evacuated all of them (several thousand) to Florida (using ‘Airline X’ evacuation flights positioning ex-UK) by no later than 12 hours before the hurricane was scheduled to ‘hit’ the island i.e. within a time period of 48 – 60 hours from when that initial decision was taken ………………’

Handling crises such as the one above should not be left to ‘ad hoc / on the day / on the fly’ type solutions – one paramount reason being potential ‘loss of life’. Just as airlines (and tour operators too) should plan for catastrophic aircraft accidents – the same applies to preparing for ‘natural disaster’, where the risk factors involved are deemed ‘serious enough’ by the operator(s)

Of course, just about the only natural disaster which can be predicted with a reasonable degree of certainty is the hurricane – hence it can be proactively  ‘planned for’, as per the real life example above

For other types of natural disaster (e.g. earthquake and tsunami) – the airline’s pre-prepared ‘hurricane response plan’ can (if adequately prepared, trained for and exercised) serve as an excellent template (with modifications) for the necessarily reactive responses required

Solutions & Services

The AERPS consultant (author and owner of the website you are looking at right now) was instrumental in the actual pre-planning, training and testing related to the ‘Airline X’ real life example given just above (in the ‘Read more’ drop-down box) –  also acting as ‘expert advisor’ throughout that same operation. Several other ‘operations’  of this type have been similarly conducted by the consultant for Airline X – including operational aspects of the response to the 2010 volcanic ash crisis (March – June 2010) in European airspace

Accordingly, if we can be of similar service to you / your airline / tour operator etc. – please do get in touch

Note 1 – the aircraft operator (passenger airline) natural disaster (hurricane) response plan (FREE guideline document) can be found by clicking HERE

Note 2 – the aircraft operator natural disaster response plan is relatively easily adaptable for ground handling operator purposes – thus there is no separate natural disaster guideline on this website for the latter

Note 3 – The natural disaster response plan guideline for airports is referred to in the separate (FREE) AEP Volume 1 document – Sub-section 4F. Click HERE to view

Note 4 – Please contact us if a WORD version (of any of our PDF documents found on this website) is required. You are reminded of the terms and conditions regarding your use of same

Note 5 – Top of page image by ‘NASA’

Erupting volcano in Iceland - 2010
NATURAL DISASTER

This part of the website relates to how aircraft operators (more specifically – tour operator / inclusive package airlines) should prepare appropriate crisis response plans, related to the operational implications of natural disasters (particularly hurricanes / typhoons etc.) upon flight operations

(NB: We are not referring above to what might be termed longer term ‘business continuity’ plans – but rather the implementation of an immediate or near-immediate crisis response e.g. the need to evacuate entire holiday resorts and similar)

To give some idea of the catastrophic effects of three typical natural disaster types on human society, one measure might be to look at the numbers of associated fatalities (there are other measures of course – such as humanitarian, infrastructure and economic impacts)

For context we only show examples of relatively recent occurrences i.e. since 1900:

* Earthquakes

  • Tangshan, China 1976 – estimated maximum 650,000 fatalities
  • Off-shore Sumatra 2004 – estimated 250,000 fatalities when combined with associated tsunami
  • Haiti 2010 – estimated 220,000 fatalities

* Volcanic Eruption

  • Martinique (Mount Pelee) 1902 – estimated 33,000 fatalities
  • Nevado del Ruiz, Colombia, 1985 – estimated 23,000 fatalities

* Hurricane (& equivalent terminology e.g. ‘Typhoon’; Tropical Cyclone etc.)

  • Cyclone Bhola, Ganges Delta 1970 – estimated 300-500,000 fatalities
  • Cyclone Nina, China, 1975 – estimated 170,000 fatalities
  • Cyclone Nargis, Myanmar, 2008 – estimated 140,000 fatalities

Note that most hurricane deaths are due to the associated ‘storm surge’

Image below is of Super Typhoon (Hurricane) Haiyan / Yolanda – possibly the most powerful to ever hit land at the time. Yolanda devastated the central Philippines on 08 Nov 2013 – resulting in over 6,300 deaths in that country alone

Satellite image of super typhoon Haiyan - Philippines - November 2013