In message , at 12:48:15 on
Tue, 3 Apr 2018, Recliner remarked:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-43601949

Ever get the feeling maintenance was a bit slack? Also I wouldn't want to be
on an aircraft with problems at that airport if their fire trucks take so
long to turn up that the bus is virtually burnt out.

Different territory (landside vs airside); different fire trucks.

Thats no excuse.

It's a reason, not an excuse.

Would they have been happy to watch the terminal burn down?

You'd have to close the airport for takeoffs and landings first (because
those fire trucks are on standby for aircraft incidents). I don't know
if the crews are trained, or responsible for, fires within the terminal.
In any event the County should be able to deal with that.

Didn't they close the airport anyway?

Eventually, but only because PAX were evacuated unscreened from landside
to airside to get away from the smoke, and it took a few hours for the
penny to drop that sorting them back out again in to departing
(re-security screened) and arriving (passport control) wasn't going to
work in what remained of the day.

After that, at least some of
the airside fire appliances should have been available.

You'd have need them within minutes (during which flights were
undoubtedly still taking off and arriving), not hours.

Ryanair appears to be claiming that flight operations continued all
evening, which must have meant empty-ish planes taking off, and arriving
pax getting caught up in the melee.
--
Roland Perry