WARWICK - A bomb exploded in the upper-level departure terminal area of T.F. Green Airport late Thursday night, leaving more than 12 passengers wounded or unconscious and creating a diversion as unidentified terrorists proceeded to hijack a US Airways plane on the north ramp of the airfield with about 40 passengers aboard.
The "terrorist attack" was part of an exercise to test response time, security measures and coordination among various federal, state and local agencies in the face of such crises. About 150 volunteers and 25 agencies took part in the drill, including the Transportation Security Administration, the FBI, the Rhode Island State Police and Rhode Island Hospital. The Rhode Island Emergency Management Agency Homeland Security Exercise and Evaluation Program paid for the exercise.
The Federal Aviation Administration requires that all airports conduct such exercises every three years. Thursday's simulation was the largest to be conducted at T.F. Green in 20 years, said Patti Goldstein, spokeswoman for the Rhode Island Airport Corporation, at the scene Thursday night.
Exercise participants went through an hour-long training the week before and received a script telling them how to act once the exercise began. Volunteers included airport staff, off-duty policemen, Red Cross volunteers and students from local colleges "and people interested in seeing what happens," said Rebecca Pazienza, community affairs manager of the Rhode Island Airport Corporation, also at the airport that night.
No sirens were used during the exercise because people in nearby hotels might get scared, Goldstein said. Information was sent out to incoming planes so that passengers would be aware of the exercise.
Soon after the "explosion," airport police entered the terminal to see if it was safe for Warwick police and firefighters to come in to look for more explosives. About 20 minutes later, firefighters came in to escort injured passengers to Rhode Island Hospital ambulances. Five people were taken to Rhode Island Hospital to assess the hospital's emergency response, Pazienza said. The airport police brought in two bomb-sniffing dogs to search baggage littering the terminal.
Participating agencies could have responded to the "attack" almost immediately - since, this time, they knew it was coming - but police, firemen and ambulances delayed their arrival to more closely resemble the time it would take to respond to a real attack, Pazienza said.
Chuck Larcom, the deputy exercise director, said an actual terrorist attack on the most secure areas of the airport is "highly unlikely" because the airport's security is "very good."
"To train people you have to make up things sometimes that may not be as realistic as they could be," he said at the airport Thursday. Larcom gave the exercise an "A" because everyone involved responded promptly and "tried to do their best."
Volunteers said they enjoyed being part of an exercise designed to test and improve security at the airport.
Heather Emerick MS'95, who played a conscious but wounded victim in the terminal, said she tried to act naturally so the situation would seem more real.
"I pretended that my wedding pictures were in my suitcase so (the rescuers) had to convince me to let my suitcase go," said Emerick, now a consultant in learning and professional development in Brown's human resources department.
Another participant, Daniel White, said he decided to be part of the exercise because he thinks it was something "the government needs help with."
"I'll sit there and lay on the floor if it'll make them respond to things faster," he said. "Saving people's lives is important."
The passengers of the "hijacked" plane saw a little more action as the "terrorists" yelled at them and called them "infidels and American pigs," said Corey Cantrell, a junior at Johnson and Wales University, who was on board the aircraft.
"They sent everyone to the back of the plane, and when someone rebelled, they took them to the front," he said. "They said they weren't here to harm Americans, but then they began 'executing' some people," Cantrell said, adding that the "terrorists" were looking for a Saudi prince.
"They made it pretty realistic," he said.
Emerick said she decided against playing a passenger on the plane because it was "a bit too close for comfort."
"I fly a lot and it freaked me out a little bit," she said. "It seemed a little bit more real than I would've liked."
Pazienza said, though the attack was not based on a real terrorist attack, the Rhode Island Emergency Management Agency works with federal organizations to incorporate typical terrorist tactics into the
exercise.
