Photo taken during today’s emergency exercise. The exercise is aimed at testing the airport and stakeholders’ capacity to deal with any emergency
A full-scale emergency exercise to test for Entebbe International Airport’s readiness to respond to an emergency involving a passenger aircraft presumed to have ‘crashed adjacent to runway 12/30’ has been held at Entebbe International Airport on Friday, May 23, 2025.
The two-hour exercise activated at 1309 hours involved simulation of an East Sky Airlines (pseudo name) flight with 95 passengers and 5 crew on board. The exercise assumed that the Embraer 190 aircraft was cleared to land at Entebbe International Airport, but ‘crashed in an area adjacent to the airport’s perimeter fence and caught fire’.
This sparked off an emergency involving airport fire-fighters and other rescue agencies that were called in to ‘save lives.’
It was presumed that ’25 people lost their lives’, 13 of the survivors were injured and 62 people were successfully rescued without injury.’ The ‘critically injured’ were rushed to hospitals in Entebbe and Kampala and the uninjured united with friends and families.
Speaking to the media after the exercise, Uganda Civil Aviation Authority’s Director General, Fred K. Bamwesigye, commended the “over 600 participants from 50 participating agencies, including airport stakeholders, medical service providers, security agencies, public and private fire-fighting service companies, among others, for taking part in the exercise aimed at testing the airport and stakeholders’ capacity to deal with any emergency.”
The exercise, which is held once every two years was last held in 2023. It tests inter-agency coordination, assesses incident command, evaluates emergency medical services, and measures collaboration in high stress conditions, among others. It is a mandatory requirement for international Airports of countries that are contracting member States of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) to conduct a full-scale emergency exercise every two years.
