Emergency landing lights used successfully

Leader of Government Business, the Hon Kurt
Tibbetts, hands over the portable emergency airport
lights to the Little Cayman Fire Service

Fire Officer Whitman Tatum holds two of the lights at
the Edward Bodden Airfield

Friday,  February 17, 2006

The newly acquired emergency evacuation lights for the Edward Bodden Airfield on Little Cayman were used successfully for the first time Saturday, 11 February.

Local charter plane company, Island Air, responded to a medical emergency on the Island and landed on the runway just after 10:00 pm.

Prior to the recent purchase of the portable airfield lights by the Ministry with responsibility for District Administration, emergency landings could only be made with the help of Little Cayman residents and their vehicles.
Little Cayman Fire Service Sub-officer George Hurlston explained that the old procedure would be to phone local resorts and friends to come to the airport in their cars and trucks. 

Before the arrival of the plane, the vehicles would line up facing the runway and shine their headlights onto it to guide the plane. Two vehicles, one at each end, would shine their parking lights to mark the distance of the landing strip.

On this occasion, Sub-Officer Hurlston said he was notified by medical staff at the clinic of the impending medical evacuation at 8:40 pm, and immediately called Fire Officers Whitman Tatum and Mark Scott. They were all on duty by 8:35 pm. 

Together the three fire officers, with the help of Little Cayman Police Officer Simon Bennett, put the lights in the back of the station pick-up truck and turned them on. 

Sub-officer Hurlston explained that there is a switch that starts a small, red, blinking light in the daylight. The lights will not shine fully unless it is dark.

On this occasion, they came on straight away, and were lit as the officers laid them by the runway.

There are, in total, eight red lights and thirty-four white lights, which are stored and cared for at the airport by the Little Cayman Fire Officers.

Four red lights were placed at each end of the runway, a distance of approximately 3,200 feet, and seventeen of the white lights were placed along each side of the runway, about 124 feet apart, said Sub-officer Hurlston. 

He said it took approximately ten minutes to complete the layout. Shortly before the plane’s arrival, they took the covers off the lights. 

“The whole thing was very much easier,” said Sub-officer Hurlston, contrasting the use of the portable lights with the old, less safe procedure.

Throughout the operation, they remained in contact with the officers at Cayman Brac Fire Station via handheld radio and phone, and through them to the Brac airport tower, so they could keep abreast of the situation.

He said the plane was on the ground for about thirty minutes, and took off with the aid of the portable lights at 10:35 pm.

Island Air Managing Director Marcus Cumber said the two pilots who flew the plane into Little Cayman reported that they could see the lights clearly from ten miles away, and that the landing went very smoothly.

The patient, an American man staying at one of the resorts, was a diabetic who caught the flu. According to the resort owner, the dehydration that resulted from the virus aggravated the diabetes to a dangerous level, and medical staff recommended immediate evacuation.

“It is nothing but a good thing for the continued improvement of the medical facilities on Little Cayman,” said the resort owner. 

“We have a very competent staff of medical professionals, and the addition of the lights mean that they can do what it takes to react to any medical emergency at any time of the day.” 

The gathering at the official hand-over of the portable emergency lights by Leader of Government Business, the Hon Kurt Tibbetts, took place Friday 13 January at the Edward Bodden Airfield.

Attending the short and very simple ceremony were senior Ministry and District Administration staff, including Permanent Secretary Kearney Gomez and District Commissioner Kenny Ryan.

Also present were Cayman Airways CEO Mike Adam and CAL staff, Chairman of the CAL Board of Directors Bobby Bodden, Cayman Brac Station Officer Larry Bryan, members of the Little Cayman Fire Service, and District Officer Larry Foster.

    Back...