Volunteer airport team can aid families in aircraft disasters

If a major aircraft accident occurs at Wichita Eisenhower National Airport, a team of volunteers has been organized to support family members of accident victims.

That was one of the presentations made Monday at the August meeting of the Wichita Airport Advisory Board.

Brad Christopher, assistant director of airports, told the board that the Incident Family Support Team was organized five years ago and comprises about 40 volunteers – including employees of airport businesses, local residents and clergy – who receive training and orientation about three times a year to provide comfort and support to family members immediately following an accident.

Christopher said it may be hours before an airline can deploy a team of counselors and employees to assist victims’ families. The family support team, he said, is there to bridge that gap.

“The common thread in almost all airport disasters is airports really take it on the chin on how they dealt with family and friends after a disaster,” he said. “What we absolutely cannot do … we can’t say, ‘Sorry, we can’t help you. The airline will be here in four hours.’

“That’s just not acceptable.”

He said the team has been put into action once since its formation: the October 2014 crash of a Beechcraft King Air into a FlightSafety building at Eisenhower, which killed four people.

“We used it on a smaller scale,” he said of the team’s help in that accident. “But it worked out very well.”

Advisory board members on Tuesday were also told:

▪ Construction on 7,000-square feet of space for a new statewide Transportation Security Administration office inside the new terminal building should begin sometime this fall.

▪ The draft of a revised leasing policy for the Wichita Airport Authority has been completed and submitted to the board for consideration. Board members are expected to vote at its September meeting on whether to recommend approving the revised policy to the Wichita City Council, which acts as the airport authority.

This story was originally published August 1, 2016 at 6:18 PM with the headline "Volunteer airport team can aid families in aircraft disasters."