On the morning of April 4, 2003, a Beechcraft King Air 200 twin-engine plane departed from LaGuardia Airport in New York City with five passengers on board. The flight’s destination was Fitchburg Municipal Airport in Massachusetts, where even though it was a spring morning, the weather was raw with drizzle and a slight icing that forced a two-hour delay in opening local schools.
At 9:21 A.M., the airplane was cleared for the approach into Fitchburg, but at 9:28 the crew was advised by Boston’s Logan International Airport to change that approach and the crew acknowledged the request. According to a passenger who was the only survivor of the crash, “everything seemed fine” during the flight until the aircraft entered a left turn in which it went almost completely upside down. The airplane straightened out, then entered a left-turn roll and went into a dive straight down until it struck a commercial building. Witnesses on the ground said they believed the plane was approaching too fast and too low.
At 9:29, calls were received by the Leominster Fire Department Fire Alarm Office reporting an airplane down in the vicinity of a residential area. The initial dispatch consisted of Engines 3 and 4, the heavy rescue and an advanced life support (ALS) unit from MED-Star Ambulance Service, along with on-duty Deputy Chief Alfred E. LeBlanc. (LeBlanc, a career fire officer of 26 years, is now chief of the Leominster Fire Department. He is a Massachusetts Fire Academy instructor coordinator for 14 years and on the adjunct faculty at Quinsigamond Community College in Worcester.) The crew of Engine 3, whose quarters are on the north side of the city, came out of their station and saw a large plume of black smoke about a quarter-mile away. The engine officer, Lieutenant Charles LeBlanc, immediately reported a working fire at 9:31, dispatching Ladder 2 and Engine 2 to fill out the assignment. He made the decision to go down Nashua Street, which intersects with the firehouse, toward the smoke.
On arrival, Lieutenant LeBlanc found the aircraft had crashed into the rear of a two-story, 100-by-100-foot, metal-clad building that housed the D-E Corp., a sheet metal fabricating business. Seven D-E employees were working in the building at the time.
Leominster Police Officer Ronald Simmons met Engine 3’s crew and stated he was with a victim who had just walked away from the aircraft. Lieutenant LeBlanc asked the police officer to stay with the patient, then walked to the back of the building, where he found the aircraft with people trapped. Heavy fire was showing all around the nose of the plane and a portion of the building had collapsed.
At 9:31, Deputy Chief LeBlanc, while enroute, ordered a second-alarm assignment with four additional ambulances to the scene. An engine and ladder from the City of Fitchburg and an engine from the Shirley Fire Department (Engine 5) were called to the scene. Lieutenant LeBlanc reported to fire alarm that four people were trapped in the plane and in need of extrication.
Heavy fire that now consumed the front of the aircraft posed a great hazard to Lieutenant LeBlanc and Massachusetts State Trooper Charles McGrail, who had arrived on scene at the same time as Engine 3 and aided in the extrication. As attempts were made to remove the occupants, Firefighter Robert Gaudet operated a 13¼4-inch line to push the fire back from their position so they could attempt the extrication.
At 9:33, Deputy Chief LeBlanc arrived on the scene and was confronted with four major emergencies: a plane crash with fuel fire, a major extrication, a structure fire and a potential hazardous materials incident. He also had to make sure that all D-E employees were accounted for.
As Engine 4, the second-due pumper, laid into Engine 3, Engine 2 was ordered to lay into the front of the building, but its crew had encountered a defective hydrant. Orders were given for Shirley Engine 5 to find a hydrant and lay a feeder line to front of the building. Engine 4 prepared a foam line to the rear of the building as the primary concern was the fuel that was burning at a high rate and the difficulty in bringing the fire under control within the building.
At 9:36, the third alarm was struck and supply lines were being laid in by the Towns of Lunenburg (Engine 1) and Westminster (Engine 1) to the front of the building. With heavy smoke pushing out from most of the structure, attempts were being made to gain entry at the front of the building. Firefighters used saws to cut away the roll-up steel doors so access could be made with hoselines to cool down the area that contained propane, oxygen and acetylene tanks. Ladder 2 was working from the B side in an attempt to ventilate at the firewall to hold the fire to that location.
As the mutual aid list continued to grow, chiefs from neighboring departments arrived on the scene, reporting to Deputy Chief LeBlanc and asking of what assistance they could be. The first of them to arrive on scene was Fitchburg Chief Kevin Roy, who was assigned to coordinate the extrication and firefighting activities at the C side of the building. Sterling Chief David Hurlbut Jr. was assigned the task of water supply officer. He established a third feeder line to assure a backup and a continued supply of water due to hydrant problems on the street. Fitchburg Deputy Chief Michael Spano was given the job of staging officer for incoming companies and manpower. Shirley Chief Dennis Levesque was assigned to oversee the firefighting on the B side of the building.
With the large numbers of possible injuries and firefighters on scene, the task of patient triage was turned over to MED-Star Ambulance. As firefighters rotated through, medics evaluated their vital signs. Medics were also in constant contact with Leominster and University of Massachusetts Trauma Hospital in Worcester. This line was open to provide any updates of anyone that maybe transported to area hospitals. The state Department of Fire Services with conjunction of the Leominster Emergency Management Rehab unit aided in the rehab of firefighters.
State Officials Respond
A representative of the Department of Fire Services happened to be in the area and saw the plane go down. He reported to the incident commander and asked if he could be of any assistance. At 9:46, the call was made for the state Incident Support Unit (ISU) to assist at the scene. This unit, one of very few in the country, responds to all major incidents in Massachusetts, providing logistical support and to assist in the local command function. Along with the ISU, the state fire marshal and state hazmat director were called in. On their arrival, they reported to Deputy Chief LeBlanc, who asked them to stage just down from the fire building. Their initial actions were to assist with radio communications and coordinate media requests, which were starting to overwhelm the fire alarm office. They also provided a location where representatives of multiple agencies could meet so that a unified command structure was maintained. Once this was established, Deputy Chief Ronald Pierce was assigned as public information officer and worked with the state fire marshal to coordinate that effort. Acting Chief of Department William Thibodeau had Deputy Chief LeBlanc continue as incident commander. Thibodeau maintained a liaison with the multiple agencies involved.
At 9:51, Deputy Chief LeBlanc was informed that the D sidewall was bulging. All chief officers were notified of a possible collapse and monitoring of that section was initiated. An officer was assigned to visually monitor the wall and update the incident commander. Heavy smoke began pushing from the A side of the building as the fire moved from the rear to the front. At 10:11, workers from the Mass Electric Co. arrived on scene and cut the power to the building as fire companies made their way up into the second floor, driving the heavy fire out the front windows.
Upon arrival of the ISU, the decision was made for the state hazmat team to be called. A decontamination area was set up for those exposed to fuel and bodily fluids. All firefighters and tools that were in that area went through this process. The State Corps of Fire Chaplains was notified to assist in providing critical incident stress debriefing (CISD) and assist at the temporary morgue that had been set up using salvage covers to shield away the public. The state medical director arrived and coordinated the movement of bodies after the incident was under control and extrication was completed. At this point, the victims were removed from the scene and taken to the Medical Examiner’s Office in Boston. At 11:44, a special call for air-supply units was placed with Sterling and Shirley to provide refill self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA) cylinders and supplied complete airpacks.
Once containment of fire was accomplished and all victims were removed, the de-escalation began and mutual aid companies began the picking-up process. A detail was then hired to remain on the scene throughout the night and assist the members of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) who had arrived in the early evening to begin their investigation. The detail was released the following morning. Local and state police provided security of the scene and the notification of NTSB and Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
Lessons Learned
A total of 12 engine companies, five ladder companies, three heavy rescue companies and four ALS ambulances were on scene and approximately 70 firefighters operated at the scene. A well-coordinated response was established with mutual aid departments, due in part to working relationships that had been developed over time. Lessons learned included:
- Some agencies failed to report issues to the incident commander (i.e., third-service medical resources need to brief the IC more often).
- A staging area with radio communications on a separate channel should have been established.
- To utilize responders for the extended operation, the mutual aid members were used to pool manpower resources.
- A voluntary debriefing later in the week with the state CISD team proved valuable.
- Daily operations of the Fire Alarm Office can be handled with the one firefighter on duty, but on this day, that member was overwhelmed with the influx of 911 calls and calls to be made for additional resources.
- An insufficient amount of foam was on the scene at first and additional foam had to be brought by mutual aid services.
- A command officer is needed in the Fire Alarm Office to direct non-emergency calls from media and other sources to the appropriate authorities.
- The incident commander needed an aide to track arriving resources for immediate deployment. A lieutenant was assigned this task as operations expanded.
- Span of control is almost immediately overwhelmed when arriving at this type of incident.
