AN emergency exercise will take place this week on the evening of March 5th at Manchester Airport to enable the airport to test its emergency procedures.

Manchester Airport is required by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) to carry out emergency exercises every two years and this time the exercise scenario will involve an aircraft coming off the runway.

Manchester Airport Operations Director, Rad Taylor said: “The exercise presents a challenge we hope we would never actually have to experience in reality, but we have to regularly train and be confident we have the plans and procedures in place to deal with any emergency situation.

“We don’t want to give too much about the exercise scenario away, as we want it to be as real as possible for the staff involved, however we wanted to let people know beforehand that this was happening and reassure local residents and airport users that there is no cause for concern on the night.

“Whilst the aircraft being used will not actually be off the runway, a full emergency response will still take place to act out the scenario, so passengers may see blue light activity from our emergency services colleagues. A number of staff and partner agencies from across the airport site will be taking part, however full resources will remain in place outside of the exercise should anything happen in ‘real life’ that requires their response.”

Flights will operate as normal during the exercise and to maintain the airport’s normal operations throughout the process, it will be carried out on Runway Two, which is out of use at that time of night.