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“Aviation is an extremely safe form of transport, we have a fantastic safety record,” says Neil Gray as I talk to him about airport fire services and why the Civil Aviation Authority’s inspection approach is similar but quite different to the regime for their neighbouring fire and rescue services.
Airport fire services exist because of the remote possibility that an aircraft could be involved in an accident on landing or take off and given the amount of jet fuel involved, the airport (or aerodrome in CAA parlance) needs to ensure those risks are covered.
Neil Gray is one of two Principal Aerodrome Inspectors for the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) and jointly they lead the inspection team of nine inspectors and support staff. He comes from an airport fire service background and inspects fire as well as all other aspects of aerodrome activity. This breadth is the first big difference between HMICFRS (or its equivalents in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland) and the CAA inspectors.
The CAA is known as the competent authority and the remit for inspection of the 600+ aerodromes in the UK is set out in legislation. The bigger airports have one set of regulations that require an airport fire service to be in place, with smaller ones following a different set of rules.
That means there are 132 aerodromes under their oversight regime, with 41 airport fire services operating in certified aerodromes. This makes them similar to HMICFRS where they inspect 44 fire and rescue services in England.
Just like HMICFRS, the CAA inspectors have an inspection plan called an oversight planning programme and it is developed for each aerodrome, taking into account the complexity of the operations. Those that are categorised as red are visited on a 12 monthly basis and over a three year period all aspects of its business will be inspected, including the airport fire service. The amber level aerodromes are inspected every 16 months over a four year period.
Unlike HMICFRS, there are no inspection reports available for individual airport fire services. Neil says that this information is brought together with all the other oversight intelligence and reported as part of a performance based oversight process through the CAA’s regulatory safety management system.
“We notify the aerodrome in 10 weeks in advance of our inspection and request information from them. From this we decide which areas of the aerodrome and its operations to focus on, and where we we will be doing a deeper dive into their safety performance. Over a 36 month period we will cover everything including the fire service.”
In terms of equipment that the airport fire service needs, it will vary based on the profile of the aerodrome. Leaving an audit trail is important here and on the competence side of things, the inspector will want to see a training needs analysis. Neil refers to CAP 699 which covers the competence of firefighting personnel, “effectively a National Occupational Standard for airport fire services,” he explains.
Due to the rarity of fires in airports, Neil says the competence is based on training. “It is really important that the training is realistic as a result of this.” The same goes for exercising and Neil says that the fire service is part of the aerodrome’s emergency plan. “Everyone in that plan should know what their role is.” The regulations require a major exercise every two years.
Learning from incidents is also part of this regime and with the report into the Luton Airport car park fire published by Bedfordshire Fire and Rescue Services last year, other airports will have been interested in that too. Although, Neil cautions, that the remit of the airport fire service does not include the buildings at the airport.
In the case of the car park fire at Luton Airport, it was a joint response from both BFRS and Luton’s airport fire service and, Neil says that any response like that is always on the proviso that they can still cover the fire risk from the aircraft. Some work is taking place at an international level to see if the scope of airport firefighting operations should include the built environment too.
Inspection reports from HMICFRS often, if not always, include recommendations. It’s almost the same with the CAA inspection regime but it starts first with non-compliance. “Something that doesn’t meet the requirement of the regulations is a non-compliance,” Neil explains. He and his team give the fire service time to rectify it or hear reasons why the service is not complying.
Level one non-compliance means there is an immediate risk to safety and is very rare, says Neil. Level two are less impactful in terms of safety but do require attention as do the third level of feedback from the inspectors called observations. These are things where the inspectors have spotted things that might lead to non-compliance in the future; it’s also a chance to share good practice found in one aerodrome with others.
It’s a busy calendar for these inspectors as their geographical footprint spans across England, Wales, Northern Ireland, Scotland, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. Neil and his team may come from airport fire service backgrounds but by looking at things as diverse as wildlife hazard management and aircraft fuel quality, it’s the variety that makes his job enjoyable.
Find out more about how airport fire services work by watching the Emergency Services webinar on catch up – Learning the lessons from the Luton Airport car park fire.
