JFK Airport Conducts Eerie Plane Crash Drill With Screaming Actors

New York City’s John F. Kennedy International Airport has been carrying out a series of first-responder training exercises throughout October.

The airport has issued 12 travel notices alerting passengers to live-fire drills this month, including the latest exercise on Tuesday.

A spokesperson for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates JFK, said the fire exercises are part of mandatory annual training. Several sessions are scheduled because a large number of personnel must complete them.

“A live-fire training exercise is being conducted, in which fire and smoke will be produced in a controlled fashion, away from public areas,” the airport said in a social media warning.

The notice added: “There is no cause for alarm, and there will be no impact to flight operations.”

A traveler’s photo posted on X on October 14 appeared to show flames and thick plumes of smoke rising from the tarmac.

JFK responded that the scene was part of a “Live Fire Training Exercise,” with fire and smoke being generated in a controlled setting away from public areas.

The Port Authority spokesperson said the flames were controlled burns used during the training sessions.

The airport also held a “full-scale emergency response exercise” simulating a plane crash. Actors portrayed injured passengers, including some who screamed during the scenario, as required by the Federal Aviation Administration every three years.

“This exercise will not impact flight operations, but smoke and emergency vehicles may be seen at or around,” the airport warned on Facebook.

The FAA requires commercial airports to conduct a full-scale emergency exercise once every three years. The reason for the unusually high number of fire drills at JFK remains unclear.

Saturday’s simulation began at 10 a.m. when participants received a report that an aircraft with “unknown souls on board” and “unknown fuel on board” had crashed, according to The New York Times.

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Actors wore injury-description tags around their necks while actual first responders practiced evacuating a Delta Air Lines Airbus A330-900 used in the drill.

Those taking part established an emergency response center and disclosed further details of the scenario: the aircraft was an international arrival carrying 102 people.

Cloth dummies represented those who had died, while a smoke machine recreated hazardous conditions. The aircraft’s escape slides were not deployed, and no debris was scattered across the field, unlike what would be expected after an actual crash, the Times reported.

“In a real accident, this whole area would be covered in foam,” Sarah McKeon, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey’s director of aviation, told the newspaper.

The approximately two-hour drill brought together more than 100 emergency responders from city, state and federal agencies.

It was the first full-scale emergency exercise at a major New York City-area airport since a fatal crash at LaGuardia in March.

An Air Canada flight with 72 passengers and four crew on board collided with a fire truck while landing at LaGuardia on March 22, killing the two pilots.

The aircraft struck the rescue vehicle, which was responding to a separate incident.

The FAA found that two air-traffic controllers left work early before the fatal crash, sources familiar with the investigation told The Wall Street Journal.

The remaining staff at the LGA tower had no backup to handle high workloads, the sources said.

Our News Outlet contacted the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and the FAA for comment.