Creating Self-Directed Resiliency Plans for General Aviation Airports (2024)
Chapter: Tool G: Airport Emergency Plan Template
TOOL G
Airport Emergency Plan Template
This Airport Emergency Plan template is intended to aid in the user’s methodology and approach to preparing for, responding to, and recovering from shocks and stressors. The template is meant to be complementary to emergency plans already in place and is only meant to provide supplemental information that may be missing. It should in no way override any required standards or templates currently in place. Refer to the Resilience Handbook for links to additional airport-specific plan templates and guidelines.
Date of Last Update: mm/dd/yyyy
Introduction
Creating, implementing, and maintaining a holistic and thorough emergency plan is a vital component of resilience for GA airports. As the types of shocks and stressors that impact GA airports continue to evolve and present new challenges to staff, tenants, and stakeholders, the value of emergency planning continues to increase. During an incident, it is essential to have an established set of roles, responsibilities, procedures, and resources to respond to the issue quickly and resume normal airport operations as quickly as possible.
This Airport Emergency Plan template is designed to provide a framework for emergency planning for all GA airports. The template will encompass pre-incident planning, implementation of the plan during an incident, and post-incident updates and maintenance to the plan. Refer to the callout boxes within the template to assist in filling out each section and ensuring that the template best fits your airport and the specific types of incidents your airport may experience. This template can be modified to fit a specific type of shock or stressor or be used as a general concept of operations for any given incident type.
| Airport Name: |
| Airport Type: |
| Airport Code: |
| FAA Region: |
Complete the table with the relevant information for this airport.
Types of Emergencies
The types of shocks and stressors that impact GA airports across the nation are diverse and highly variable based on several factors, such as geography and climate. Table G-1 outlines several types of shocks and stressors with examples. Note that this table is not meant to be a comprehensive or exclusive list of all potential shocks and stressors.
Table G-1. Shocks and stressors.
| Type | Shock/Stressor |
|---|---|
| Economic | Fuel price increases |
| Financial stress/resilience issues | |
| Federal funding opportunities | |
| Environmental | Severe weather |
| Flooding | |
| Winter storms | |
| Hurricanes | |
| Tornadoes | |
| Earthquakes | |
| Drought | |
| Wildfires | |
| Volcanic eruption | |
| Tsunami | |
| Operational | Political issues (local, state, national) |
| Pilot shortages | |
| Border security | |
| Terrorist threats/attacks | |
| Cyberattacks/cyberterrorism | |
| Transportation incidents | |
| Airport security | |
| Power outage | |
| Industrial disasters | |
| Aging infrastructure | |
| Construction projects | |
| VIP visits | |
| Social | Human pandemic |
| Personnel issues |
Source: ACRP Research Team GA airport interviews and Toolkit Pilot, 2022
Review this section and modify the preceding table to outline any shocks and stressors specific to this airport. Refer to the Resilience Handbook for further information and guidelines on shocks and stressors.
Guiding Principles
The following resources provide information on emergency planning that can be used to build out, strengthen, and update the Airport Emergency Plan template:
- National Response Framework (FEMA 2019);
- National Incident Management System (FEMA 2017a);
- State and Local Guide (SLG 101), Guide for All-Hazard Emergency Operations Planning (FEMA 1996);
- Incident Command System;
- FAA Advisory Circular 150/5200-31C, Airport Emergency Plan (FAA 2009); and
- ACRP Research Report 147: Climate Change Adaptation Planning: Risk Assessment for Airports (Dewberry et al. 2015).
Review the resources cited in this section and list any specific airport or regional plans, guidelines, or policies that apply to your airport.
Pre-Incident Planning
Creating an airport emergency plan and conducting pre-incident planning activities are vital components of resilience against potential shocks and stressors. The more comprehensive the pre-incident planning is, the more prepared and resilient an airport can be during an incident. It is important to establish roles and responsibilities for airport staff and relevant stakeholders, procedures to follow during and after an incident, and resources for responding to different types of shocks and stressors before the onset of an incident.
Roles and Responsibilities
The following table can be completed with the relevant emergency roles for airport staff, any relevant external stakeholders, and the corresponding responsibilities assigned to each role.
| Role | Responsibility |
|---|---|
Complete the table with all relevant roles and responsibilities for each role. Potential roles include airport manager, operations manager/specialist, and FBO.
This could be shown as a matrix of organizations and areas of responsibility that indicates primary and supporting roles. FAA Advisory Circular 150/5200-31C, Airport Emergency Plan (2009) provides an example of such a matrix (see the Emergency Response Organization Responsibility Matrix). As the advisory circular notes, not every airport will have the personnel resources to fill each position, but it is important that each functional area is addressed.
Communication and Collaboration
Maintaining strong lines of communication and collaboration with all airport personnel, tenants, private-sector and public-sector partners, and first responders is a central component of resilience against shocks and stressors. The airport emergency plan should reflect this priority
by including contact information for all relevant stakeholders and strategies for communication and collaboration before, during, and after an incident. This section can be supplemented by the Communications and Collaboration Guidelines document within the Resilience Toolkit and the Emergency Communications Plan template in this document.
Potential components to include may be a list of stakeholders to contact before, during, and after an incident and the corresponding contact information for each stakeholder; a strategy for communicating imminent incidents with tenants and other on-site stakeholders; and a checklist for establishing emergency communications during an incident.
Application of Plan During an Incident
Emergency Timeline
Outline the time frame for any given emergency, potentially as a graphic.
Checklist of Emergency Plan Steps
Immediately after an incident, using a checklist of the next steps required to respond to the incident and move toward the resumption of regular operations allows airport staff to quickly and efficiently carry out the necessary emergency operations. Establishing the steps and requirements before the inception of the incident mitigates uncertainty and delays in response. It ensures that all airport personnel are equally prepared to respond to and recover from any potential shock or stressor.
Create a list of steps that airport personnel must follow immediately following an incident. Steps may include contacting tenants and stakeholders, requesting assistance from first responders and/or government entities, and evacuating the airfield. This checklist can be formatted to apply to any type of shock or stressor, or it can be split into different lists for each type of shock or stressor your airport faces.
Post-Incident Review and Planning
After-Action Report
After-action reports (AARs) are intended to analyze the response to an incident and outline best practices, lessons learned, and other key takeaways from the incident response. AARs allow all involved entities to learn from an incident to strengthen their strategies and concept of operations for the following potential incident and are a valuable tool for building resilience against all types of shocks and stressors.
Emergency Plan Maintenance
To be as practical and helpful as possible, the airport emergency plan must be able to evolve. This plan should be considered a living document and undergo regular periods of review, updates,
and maintenance. Airport staff should establish a schedule and process flow for reviewing and updating the airport emergency plan. The airport should consider involving external stakeholders in addition to airport personnel in this process.
The following summary of changes table is intended to list all updates and revisions to the emergency plan. The table outlines each change made, the section of the document in which the change was made, and the date of the change.
| Change Made | Section | Date of Change | Change Made By |
|---|---|---|---|
Complete this table with all updates and revisions made to the emergency plan, the section in the document in which each change was made, the date of the change, and who made the change.
