London-Ashford Airport, better known as Lydd, and 75 miles from Charing Cross, wants publicity and for its name to be known around the aviation scene.
Nothing wrong with that. It is a fine small airport with money being invested in it and hopes for regular charter traffic and maybe even scheduled services. The 1500m runway can easily accommodate Bombardier Q400s, and the like. Around ”20m ($39m) has been spent on resurfacing the runway, upgrading the instrument landing system, the new air traffic control and VIP terminal, plus the new departure and arrival facilities.
Readers might like to know that the airport”s fire and rescue teams have put their skills to the test during a full scale, night time emergency exercise. Fire fighters swung into action after a simulated 74-seat ATR-72 aircraft, arriving from Geneva, touched down with the crew reporting the smell of burning from the cockpit control panel.
So far, so good. Unfortunately Lydd has neither a spare ATR-72 fuselage nor even a 74-seat omnibus to replicate an aeroplane.
In fact a 50-seat coach was used, whilst 36 airport staff played the role of passengers. Police got involved in the exercise, along with the local fire and rescue services, who sent tenders from New Romney, Ashford and Folkestone. The South East Coast Ambulance Service was also on the scene setting up an inflatable casualty centre to help those in need of medical attention.
A fine and serious exercise but does anybody know where a larger coach could be found for when it is repeated in 12 months” time as required by the Civil Aviation Authority?