RAF Firefighters In 'Mid-Air Collision Exercise' With Romanians

Fire and rescue services from the Royal Air Force, local Romanian forces and the United States carried out their first ever joint crash exercise at a base they share with civilian aircraft.

The scenario was a Typhoon and Blackhawk experiencing a mid-air collision that resulted in the Typhoon pilot ejecting and several of the helicopter crew escaping a fire onboard after a heavy landing.  

With so many NATO partners each having their own separate procedures, it was important to confirm that the Crash Plan at the Mihail Kogalniceanu airbase near Constanta was fit for purpose.

Three nations fly military aircraft in close proximity to a civil airport which shares the same runway.

The plan had to be very detailed and clearly understood by everyone despite the language barrier. 

The RAF’s contribution came from 135 Expeditionary Air Wing. Their Flight Safety Officer, Flight Lieutenant “Woody”, was pleased how the teams had come together.

“I’m very pleased by how it went. I expected there to be a number of areas where we could improve and sure enough there are some aspects to work on, but overall we’ve proved that we have a good team at Mihail Kogalniceanu who are ready for any incident.”

The RAF team worked alongside a range of military specialists including fire and medical services from both Romania and the US as well as civilian police and airport staff. The fire chief, Lee, said it was vital they can co-ordinate their efforts in an emergency.

“It's been an extremely worthwhile practical experience that has allowed each of us – Brits, Romanians and Americans – to consider our procedures and how we can develop them to better work together in future. I am very happy that together we could effectively deal with any major incident.”

The UK is operating four Typhoon FGR4 fighters from 3(F) Squadron deployed from RAF Coningsby as its contribution to NATO's ‘Enhanced Air Policing’ mission, providing assistance to the Romanian Air Force’s own fleet of fast-jet aircraft.

The EAW team supporting them is usually based at RAF Leeming in North Yorkshire and consists of 150 personnel drawn from across the country and will be in Romania until September.