UCAA tested the readiness of Entebbe airport in case of an emergency on Friday
The Uganda Civil Aviation Authority (UCAA) has successfully conducted a mandatory partial emergency exercise to test Entebbe International Airport’s readiness in case of an emergency.
The exercise, which took place on Friday, is a mandatory requirement for international airports in countries that are contracting member states of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).
UCAA Director General Fred Bamwesigye told the media that “this time round the drill simulated a situation in which an aircraft crashes shortly after takeoff and one of its engines catches fire on the threshold of the runway.”
“It was presumed that some people lost their lives and a number of survivors were critically injured, which sparked off an emergency situation involving airport firefighters and other rescue agencies that were called in to ‘save lives’. The exercise helped us test the emergency plans and procedures, communication framework, response times, and coordination abilities of the participants,” said Bamwesigye.
The last partial emergency exercise was held in December 2020, and the full-scale emergency exercise was held in November 2022.
Entebbe Airport currently facilitates huge traffic.
In May 2024, Entebbe Airport facilitated 92,298 arrivals and 89,036 departures, for a total of 181,334 international passengers, which is an average of 5,849. This comes on the heels of a daily average of 5,313 in April 2024, 5,548 in March 2024, 6,116 in February 2024, and 6,329 in January 2024. A comparison of May 2024 to May 2023 traffic shows that the airport facilitated 28,324 more passengers in May 2024 than in the same period in May 2023.
