Nearly a year after Denver International Airport flunked a federal test of the facility’s emergency response to a simulated plane crash, officials are planning a major upgrade of the communications system linking the air-traffic control tower with DIA’s four fire stations.
The $220,000 project will modernize an emergency system that broadcasts audio alarms over public address speakers in the airport’s fire and rescue stations, said Heather McKee, an electrical engineer in DIA’s maintenance department.
The station alarms are part of a broader emergency response system called Crashnet, which mobilizes personnel throughout the airport in the event of an accident. But firefighters at DIA at times have not been able to hear alarms because of static, reverberation or other problems.
On DIA’s website, a posting announcing the upcoming repair said the sound systems at the airport fire stations are “unstable and unusable.”
Planned improvements are “to make the audio portion of Crashnet in the stations 100 percent reliable,” McKee said. The upgrade could be completed by July, she added.
Federal law requires airport fire and rescue crews to be able to get to the midpoint of any runway within three minutes after an emergency call goes out.
Last June, officials at the Federal Aviation Administration performed an unannounced test of the response time of DIA’s Aircraft Rescue and Firefighting units.
Because of a faulty fire alarm system at one of DIA’s fire stations, “the first vehicle failed to make it to the midpoint of the farthest runway serving air carrier operations within three minutes,” the FAA said in a letter to airport officials.
“The firefighters just didn’t hear it,” Denver Fire Department Division Chief Nick Nuanes said of the test alarm. Nuanes heads the unit of about 100 firefighters at DIA.
For some time, the airport’s primary alarm system has suffered from reverberation, feedback and other audio problems, officials said.
At times, firefighters turned the volume on the speakers down because of excessive buzz, McKee said.
The new system will not have manual switches to allow such tinkering and will be continually monitored electronically by airport personnel to ensure it is working properly, she added.
The aim of the communications overhaul is to deliver clear, understandable emergency calls, McKee said.
For the past year, airport officials have backed up DIA’s balky audio alarm system in the firehouses with radio transmissions and telephone calls, said airport spokesman Steve Snyder.
For that reason, DIA has been in compliance with FAA emergency response guidelines despite the problem with the primary alarm system, Snyder said. “It’s not unsafe because of the backup systems.”
The current system is tested twice a day to verify it is working, McKee said.
Staff writer Jeffrey Leib can be reached at 303-820-1645 or at jleib@denverpost.com.
