Canadian airports 'not prepared' for major crashes, says former St. John's airport firefighter

Aviation safety advocates say airports in Newfoundland and Labrador — and across the country — lack the firefighting resources needed in the event of a major crash. George Power, a retired firefighter with a decades-long career at airports in Wabush, Gander and St. John's, believes change needs to happen at the federal level. "Most of the Canadian airports are not prepared to do rescue with the current setup," he told CBC Radio's The St. John's Morning Show. Power pointed to firefighter staffing levels and training for municipal firefighters as two areas of concern. According to a debriefing report from a 2022 emergency training exercise at St. John's International Airport obtained by CBC News, three firefighters were being staffed per shift at the time. The report states that the exercise simulated a crash of a plane carrying less than 20 passengers, far smaller than many of the flights that land in St. John's. Still, the reports says there was an "insufficient number of trained and qualified firefighters to be able to do any search or rescue safely." One of the report's six recommendations calls on the airport to quadruple its firefighter staffing complement to 12 firefighters per shift.<br/>