Statistics of firefighter injuries at airports

Airport Firefighter Issues

Finding an agency in the U.S. that has compiled data regarding the injuries that are suffered by firefighters on the scene of air crashes in the U.S. is a problematical assignment. The list of firefighter-related associations, organizations and unions is lengthy but none of those references specifically address the issue of injuries to airport firefighters. Some of the above-mentioned groups include: National Fire Protective Association; U.S. Fire Administration; Federal Aviation Administration; National Transportation and Safety Board; National Fallen Firefighter Foundation; International Association of Firefighters; OSHA and FirefightersOnline.com, among several others.

Review of Literature and Source Information

Research for this paper included phone calls to fire associations and government-related firefighter agencies; Dale Rodriguez, an airport firefighter with Cal Fire in California said, "…There just aren't many airport crashes in the first place, and so there are probably more injuries suffered by airport firefighters in training activities then in actual emergency responder actions at crash sites." Rodriguez did say that in the aftermath of the crash of a DC-10 in Sioux City Iowa (1989) many firefighters and members of the 185th Air National Guard suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). "Many of those firefighters retired early and suffered from PTSD," Rodriguez explained. "PTSD is not an injury in the traditional sense, but it is a serious health problem, and we know you can't really prepare for that as firefighters."

The commander of the 185th Air National Guard in Iowa (now retired) is Dennis Swanstrom, who was contacted by telephone for this report. Swanstrom said his entire National Guard unit became a Department of Defense study group; he said some level of PTSD was experienced by many of the guard members who fought the DC-10 fires and removed charred bodies from the wreckage. "I cried like a baby" days after the event Swanstrom explained. "I told my troops that I cried often and encouraged them to release their emotions as well." He said that "We probably kept a lot of soldiers from becoming emotionally disabled from serious bouts of post traumatic stress disorder because we got a lot of us together every night; we got into a circle, held hands, and said prayers for the families of those killed and injured."

Rita Fahy, public information staffer at the National Fire Protective Association (NFPA) is quoted in the report, "An Evaluation of the Need for Proximity Protective Clothing for Aircraft Firefighting" (Jackson, USAF, 1999) saying: "I can't think of any firefighter deaths in the last 20 years during aircraft firefighting." When reached by telephone (July 14, 2010) for this research paper, Fahy said, "I really don't know of any statistical database or other reference for injuries suffered by firefighters at airports during emergency activities." She added that she is not aware of any fires at airports causing injuries subsequent to the latest NFPA reports. In a research article (Washburn, LeBlanc and Fahy, 1999) it was reported, "…in 1998, five [airport] firefighters died from burns, but none of the injuries were received during aircraft firefighting" (Jackson, USAF, 1999, p. 8).

The main point of the report within which Fahy is quoted was issued to emphasize that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has specifically asked "all airport fire departments" to provide "proximity protective clothing" for their firefighters (Jackson, p. 2). (Proximity gear is very expensive heavy-duty protective equipment.) the report (p. 2) however disputes the OSHA requirement, claiming there is "no data to indicate firefighters have been injured in aircraft firefighting operations while wearing structural protective clothing…" Quoted in the article is Bruce Teele, Senior Fire Service Safety Specialist with the NFPA, who said: "If you talk to a majority of airport fire departments, they don't carry proximity protective clothing anymore. They carry structural firefighting protective clothing because the FAA considers the fuselage of an airplane to be a structure."

Larry Williams is a training consultant for aircraft firefighting and he points out in the Jackson report (p. 8) that the technology of crash fire rescue firefighting has advanced "…well beyond the days of chemical foam and asbestos suits to the point where a 6,000-gallon capacity crash vehicles can be operated by one person." Just about all actual firefighting by airport firefighters is done from inside that vehicle, Williams explains. The FAA has a similar view. The advanced capability of Aqueous Film Forming Foams (AFFF) "…now enable airport firefighters to control and essentially extinguish large aviation fuel fires while still in the attacking vehicle" (Jackson, p. 9).

Meanwhile, when it comes to a situation where an aircraft has crashed at an airport and there is an emergency rescue and firefighting task ahead, the International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF) claims that lives are being jeopardized due to "outdated" Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) safety standards (Air Safety Week, 2008). In fact the IAFF President Harold Schaitberger asserts that the FAA has "resisted modernizing its safety standards since 1988" even though subsequent to that date the number of airplanes, the size of airplanes and the amount of fuel they carry have "grown dramatically" (Air Safety Week).

Firefighters who earn their pay working at airports claim that the FAA's standards are "archaic" and that those standards should "…at least be brought up-to-date" with voluntary consensus standards that are used nationally for "response time," staffing and deployment. In the article a fire captain at Logan Airport in Boston -- Joe Conner -- asserts that airport firefighters "are being restricted from doing our jobs" (Air Safety Week). Given the inadequate safety standards in airports, the public is "being placed in danger" Conner continued.