First Responders To LaGuardia Plane Skid Say Training Kicked In Immediately
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) – For the first time, we're hearing from the elite team of first responders who helped evacuate a plane that skidded of the runway at LaGuardia International Airport Thursday.
As CBS2's Tony Aiello reported, it's the kind of job where's there's no telling what any given day might bring.
And when the Port Authority Aircraft Rescue Firefighting team's truck pulled out of the garage Thursday, the men inside admit they were a little nervous.
"A little fear and then it turns to, 'Okay, I have a job to do and I'm going to do that job," Port Authority ARFF team member Robert Persandi said.
"Your adrenaline is going, you remember your training. It kicks in right away," Brian Vitale said.
The ARFF team is the most unique in the nation and includes cops trained as firefighters qualified to respond to aircraft disasters.
"(What was it like to pull up to this MD-88, perched just a few feet from Flushing Bay?) Surreal. You pull up to a scene like that and you see the aircraft where it was, how it was-- you just take a second to take it all in," Joseph Ernst said.
A mechanical arm on the truck was deployed to spray foam on the plane's leaking gas tank.
All passengers were evacuated, 127 men, women and children. Some slid down the wing while others climbed out the rear. All found helping hands from ARFF team members.
"We slid down and there were a couple burly guys to catch everybody. Carry you right off and put you on the ground!" passenger Sheila Mihalovitz said.
"Some people are crying, some people are like jittery, saying 'Oh my god what just happened?' I heard one girl say 'Oh that was pretty cool,'" Vitale said
"I had an infant, made sure they got back to their parents safely. At that time I thought about my children," ARFF member Brian Parker said.
Members of the team take great satisfaction in knowing everyone got out of this mess alive with no serious injuries.
"This is our job and everything they did, the crew was supposed to do. I'm very proud of them," Capt. Joseph Marino said.
The ARFF team told CBS they got a lot of hearty handshakes, thank yous and even a few hugs from passengers. And if the plane had gone a few more yards and ended up in the bay, they're trained to respond to that kind of emergency, too.
