Gulf Shores International Airport holds disaster drill ahead of May opening

GULF SHORES, Ala. (WALA) - Commercial flights are scheduled to begin in less than a month from Gulf Shores International Airport. As part of Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulations, a mandatory disaster drill was held Tuesday, April 29, 2025. Emergency response agencies from across south Baldwin County participated.

“Go ahead and dispatch all available ambulances, including Medstar and Orange Beach,” was the call that came across emergency radio frequencies as the exercise began.

It was just a drill, but the goal was to make it seem real. City school busses simulated the fuselage of a crashed jetliner. There was a full emergency response from Gulf Shores, Orange Beach and Foley fire departments. Medstar and Lifeguard helicopters flew out critical patients while multiple ground ambulances tended to other injured passengers.

“This is our chance not to have the first time that this happens be when it actually happens,” said Airport Director, Jesse Fosnaueh. “We want to prepare so, that’s what this is really all about is to make sure this is not the first time I talked to the Chief of Police, the first time I talked to the you know, firefighters. It really helps set up interagency support, so we set up a command to do that.”

In the simulation, a 707 aircraft crashes with 121 souls on board, causing a combination of fatalities and various injuries. It was a worst-case scenario.

“Obviously, hope it never happens but incidents like this and exercises like this have saved lives many times over. You’ve seen it before. The Asiana crash in San Francisco and also Sioux City, Iowa. It’s because of these exercises that save lives,” Fosnaueh explained.

A new, Aircraft Rescue Firefighting (ARF) truck was the first to respond, spraying down the runway with water. It’s required by the FAA for the truck to remain on airport grounds and to respond to a crash within three minutes. While FAA officials watched from the tower, observers on the ground were also keeping close tabs on the exercise.

“I want to make sure that when we’re getting here, we’re getting here in a timely response and that everybody knows their roles, finding out what the biggest emergency is when we get there, mitigating that and triaging everything else out and ultimately getting all the patients off the airfield to their proper destinations,” said Chief of Operations for Gulf Shores Fire Department, Robert Rowland.

The hope is that the role players from Gulf Shores High School are the closest thing to real life the new airport will experience. A hot wash was held after the drill to go over how everything was handled.

The first commercial flight n to the new facility will be on May 21, 2025. Allegiant Air will fly in from Knoxville with a returning flight that same day. Book you direct flight tickets now for direct flights to six locations including Knoxville, St. Louis, Kansas City, northwest Arkansas, Cincinnati and Houston.