Gatwick Airport – Air India Response

Richard Church, Airport Commander from Sussex Police, opens day 2 of the conference, speaking on the response to the Air India crash. Richard explained the role of the police at Gatwick Airport. He then covered the Incident involving the Air India plane, the day of the incident they saw the news reports of the crash and quickly had to determine their response to this as the flight was due to land at Gatwick, meaning friends and family of the passengers would be descending on the airport. Richard and several key partners organised a response in line with the emergency orders, command structures were initiated to carry out the strategic and tactical response to this incident. He outlined the infrastructure at the airport that was used during this response and how this was staffed by various agencies and departments and how JESIP was enacted to coordinate this multi agency response. The agencies involved ranged from the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office, West Sussex Council, AAIB, Border Force and others. and the roles and responsibilities for those agencies involved. He then covered the key learning points from this response , what went well and what can be improved.