Introduction
Throughout this assignment I will be explaining Major Incidents (MI), the causes of those Major Incidents, the effects and impacts of Major Incidents and who is involved. To aid my explanation of Major Incidents I will be adding a few examples.
(P1 - Define the term ‘major incident’).
What is a Major Incident (MI)?
A Major Incident is a situation where there is a high risk to loss of life and requires the involvement of the Public and Emergency Services.
Many public services are required when there is a MI. This is because they have the suitable training and equipment to prevent the incident from escalating any further and to prevent any lives from being lost. Some of the public services that are involved include the Police, Fire
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and Rescue Service, Ambulance and many more. The public services roles can be found towards the end of this assignment situated in a table format. The North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue defines a major incident as, “A major incident can be defined as any emergency that requires the implementation of special arrangements by one or more of the Emergency Services, the NHS or local Authority for: The initial treatment, rescue and transport of a large number of casualties.” https://www.northyorksfire.gov.uk/news-events/major_incidents (P2 - Describe different types of major incident and the cause of each).
(M1 - Investigate recent major incidents and identify their cause).
Different types of major incidents and their causes.
There are five different types of major incidents. These are technical, man-made, natural, health related, pandemic and epidemic and are described below:
Technological
Technical Major Incidents occur when there are failures in technological systems. This could include faulty components of an airplane, defective rail tracks, radiation emissions, computer failures and many more and usually happen at any time without warning. For example – The Air France Flight 4590 Disaster (Concorde). Some causes of a technological major incident could include, faulty wiring, design flaws, wear and tear of materials, improper maintenance and many more.
The Air France Flight 4590 Disaster (Concorde).
On the 25th July 2000, a Concorde plane caught on fire and crashed into a hotel shortly after take-off. There where various different reasons why the Concorde flight crashed, including; debris, engine failure, negligence, aviation regulations and insufficient parts. There were 113 dead casualties. 100 of these were passengers, 9 were crew members and 4 were on the ground. Adding to this, 12 walked away from the incident with just minor injuries. Many services were involved including the Police, Fire and Rescue and Ambulance services and the destruction
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cost a shocking £87,040,38. Impacts: The air France flight 4590 Concorde crash was a very tragic incident and affected many things such as: Lives - The flight cost the lives of 113 people, 109 of those were on board the aircraft and 4 of them were in the hotel it landed on. The crash devastated the families of all on board and of those in the hotel. Businesses/Hotelissimo Hotel - This was the hotel that the flight 4590 crashed into. It was completely destroyed and 4 staff was killed. Discontinuation of Concorde and Costs - The crash was one of the main reasons Concorde was discontinued. This was due to multiple manufacturing errors and technological faults. Another factor that caused Concorde to stop was that after the disaster its reputation took a huge hit. This was because people were afraid to fly supersonic. This had a huge financial impact on the business as Concorde generated around 30-50 million pounds of profit per annum. Manufacturers and Costs – Due to the crash occurring because of a technological fault, the manufacturers were heavily criticised. This was because the investigation uncovered that there was multiple faults with the plane that could have been solved on the ground. Some of these problems were that they used spare plane parts to fix the plane and did not repair a known crack on the wing, which led to the prosecution of an engineer from British air ways. The manufacturer was also fined a total of 200,000 euros (approximately £151,000). Public Services Involvement The public services that were involved in the public services were the Police, the Fire and Rescue services and the ambulance service Within minutes of the Concorde aircraft combusting the public services involved were at the crash site. However, unfortunately it was too late and there were no survivors. The Police had first control of the incident; they were in charge of cordoning off the scene to prevent further loss to life. They were also in charge of identifying the remains of the lives lost and of searching for any parts of the aircraft so that they could identify what caused the flight to crash. As part of health and safety the Police blocked off all roads within a 9 mile radius to prevent further harm. The Fire and Rescue service role was to look through the debris to locate any survivors and the deceased. The Ambulance service was then in charge of dealing with any casualties that were involved and would then transport these victims to the hospital. There were many positives of the public services involvement including their fast response time, their jobs being done the best of their ability, the prevention of more casualties and the control of the crowd and situation. The Ambulance personnel were able to help all survivors and the Fire service kept the fire from spreading. However, there was also a negative. This was the media exploitation. Many people will agree with the fact that the public services did all that they could in the incident. The accident happened so fast that none of the public services could do anything about it. The only negative that could be drawn is the fact that the news, images and videos of the crash was leaked around the world in a matter of hours which caused Concorde to ground all flights which cost them millions on repairs. (2) Man-Made These Major Incidents are situations that happen on purpose. They are when people plan to be aggressive or violent towards others, such as terrorism. For example, terrorist attacks that have occurred would be 7/7 or 9/11. Some causes of the causes of these MI include drugs, blackmail or manipulation, different ideologies or religions and many more. 7/7 - 7th of July 2005 On the 7th of July 2005, there was a chain of four co-ordinated bomb attacks in the city of London, where 52 people were killed, including the bombers, and more than 770 people were injured. Impacts: Due to this event there were many impacts on the country, legislation, public, capital and on the Public Services. These are described in more detail below: Impacts on the country Tourism - The 7/7 bombings had a huge effect on tourism in the UK. A report released by the BBC states that the number of tourist that visited dropped from “2.58 million in June to 2.48 million in July” as a result of the bombing. The BBC report stated that the tourist industry dreaded that fear resulting from the London attacks may result in a £300 million loss in trade. Financial - A further effect would be the financial state of the country, not only because of tourism and the money lost there, but also because of the amount of money needed to be spent on things such as, rebuilding of infrastructure damaged during the attacks and improvements within the UPS. The UPS would have needed to improve procedures and the equipment that failed when the services went into the underground station. Public Trust - The public would lack trust in the UPS as they would have been frightened. They may have been worried about the same thing happening again due to the fact that the terrorists were not dealt with. They may have also found it hard to trust that the services could stop a similar attack from occurring in the future. Impact on Legislation Following the 7/7 attacks the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, announced that in order to effectively combat terrorist attacks, the counter-terrorism legislation had to change to prevent the new threats. The main focus of the legislation was against those who would support terrorist activities, and to make it more difficult for terrorist to enter and remain in the country. Impact on the Public Fear - During 7/7, many different groups must have been affected by what happened on that day due to the wide effect of the public being one of the main groups to be affected by 7/7. Many of the people who were victims of the bombing could still be feeling stressed and frightened; this is because they have a fear of it happening again. Discrimination - Another big consequence of the 7/7 bombings on the public could be that a lot of the British Muslims may have been discriminated. This was more due to the fact that people believed that the Muslims culture had an influence on the 7/7 bombings when it was four Islamic extremists. Death or Injuries – It could result in a member of the public dying or becoming injured.
For example, they could lose a limb. This then has a further effect on families and friends.
Effects on the public services:
Health - It has been more than 15 years since the 7/7 bombings, and one of the biggest effects for the members of the public services has been severe, long-term psychological effects, such as PTSD.
Media criticism - The 2011 inquest into 7/7 revealed that the emergency services did not do enough. There were a series of errors including a lack of coordination and communication between the services. This caused a lot of criticism from both the media and external sources, which both believed that the emergency services were not prepared and was not given the correct training to deal with such an incident.
(3)
Natural
These are Major Incidents that cannot be predicted. They occur due to natural causes (which can be deemed as an act of God) and can lead to disastrous effects such as, lives being lost, property being lost or damaged and many more. These natural MI’s do not occur due to it being anyone’s fault as no person can cause them. This is because they are entirely caused by nature. A natural major incident could be caused by many natural factors, including earthquakes, floods, erupting volcanoes and many more, for example, the Boscastle
Floods. The Boscastle Floods On the 16 August 2004, Boscastle suffered extensive damage after a massive flood caused by an extraordinary amount of rain that fell over the course of 5 hours that afternoon. A study was commissioned by the Environment Agency from HR Wallingford and concluded that it was the worst known flood in the village. Impacts: There were many impacts from this incident including factors such as: Financial costs to the local authority and the Government After the Boscastle floods the government were affected massively. This was because of the damage to buildings and service it cost the North Cornwall district council up to £2 million in repairs and reconstruction. After the flood £800,000 was spent on a new flood defence scheme for Boscastle, £10 million is now being spent annually on flood defences and the regeneration scheme. Tourism According to a case study, after the flood, tourism decreased hugely. Businesses lost customers overnight hotels lost visitors and there were no customers for the local businesses in the area. However, after the residents made insurance claims, new shops, car parks and a visitor centre was rebuilt. After the reconstruction it benefited the local community, the town had an influx of tourists due to the mass media coverage it had received. (4) Individual/community Three local residents lost thousands of pounds because of their businesses, homes, land and possessions being lost and destroyed in the floods. Overall 58 properties were affected and a total of 116 cars were wrecked or swept to sea.
This tragic accident was preventable by not only the flight crew, but maintenance and air traffic control personnel as well. On December 29, 1972, ninety-nine of the one hundred and seventy-six people onboard lost their lives needlessly. As is the case with most accidents, this one was certainly preventable. This accident is unique because of the different people that could have prevented it from happening. The NTSB determined that “the probable cause of this accident was the failure of the flightcrew.” This is true; the flight crew did fail, however, others share the responsibility for this accident. Equally responsible where maintenance personnel, an Air Traffic Controllers, the system, and a twenty cent light bulb. What continues is a discussion on, what happened, why it happened, what to do about it and what was done about it.
The investigation was also one of the largest international law enforcement endeavors of its time (Birkland, 2004). This tragedy, like most devastating events, changed the course of history and is a directly affected aviation safety as we know it today. The forensic findings during the investigation also helped change aviation safety policy and procedures. The result was improvement in training for airport security personnel, examination of quality control issues and heightened aviation security regulations (Birkland,
State major events - Major events are those revolving around, leading up to, and resulting from the conflict or major problems in the work.
¨We shall never forget, We shall keep this day, We shall keep the events and the tears In our minds, our memory and our hearts and take them with us as we carry on.¨ by: Anonymous (Memorial Website). An epic turn in history all around the world, around 3000 people lost their lives, the two world trade center’s crashed into pieces, the pentagon was crashed… all of this occurred on September 11, 2001. This date till today causes people to tear, as they remember themselves watching the event occur in person, TV or websites. The entire world was watching while it occurred. This attack caused a great impact all around the world, no one could believe what was happening and how. As soon as people got the news they realized that in a blink of an eye one of the biggest tragedies in the history of the United States of America had hit. This date caused negative impact on all kind of industries especially the aviation industry, in this paper you will learn exactly how this industry was affected.
...7, the Pentagon, and Shanksville. Things outcome of events cannot be changed now, but the American people can be informed as to what the government is capable of doing to its own people. Amid the attacks, political corruptions, and many other government scandals, Americans have stayed loyal to their nation. Although there is nothing positive to be said about what happened on that dark day in 2001, the best thing that can be taken out is that perhaps the United States nation was brought closer together in a time of need. For a while after the attacks, people didn’t look at each other as black or white, young or old, and rich or poor, they were all Americans. Despite the side taken towards the argument, it is just sad to see thousands of innocent people lose their lives in the attacks, and numerous soldiers had to go fight for a nation’s selfish political agenda.
Every day millions of people put their trust in those around them. When the passengers boarded the flights on September 11th, 2001, they put their trust in the planes, the pilots, and the other passengers. On this devastating day about 3,000 people lost their lives. One of America’s only terrorist attacks on US soil, the attacks on 9/11 affected the United States by killing many people in Manhattan and Washington D.C., sending its economy into deficit, and sparking a war in Afghanistan.
Any problems, questions or equipment issues should be addressed as well as established procedures that may need correction. Emergency responders should also be evaluated to ensure proper practice and procedures were followed and to address any further training that may be needed. Use of ICS should be a focus of the evaluation because of its importance in responding to incidents. Two common mistakes for emergency responders are failure to implement ICS and failure to fully understand the concept and its application (Phoenix Police Department, n.d., slide 17). Proper use of ICS must be used and fully understood in order to reap the benefits of having an efficient, flexible and standardized incident management plan; otherwise tasks and responsibilities are likely to be overlooked during a response to any incident especially those involving the high stress of a terrorist
Disastrous events can occur in any moment throughout our lives whether involved as a victim or a provider of care for such event. The role of healthcare professionals, nurses and personnel alike is important to ensure proper patient care, especially for events that are quick and sudden. These events are categorized as Mass Casualty Events (MCE), and they are known to overwhelm local resources of surrounding facilities, consisting of injured or ill patients in need of immediate care (Smith, 2010). Recent incidents such as the Boston Marathon Bombing (2013), Hurricane Katrina (2005), and the Chatsworth Metrolink Collision (2008) are examples of such events.
It was the afternoon of July 25, 2000. One hundred passengers, most of them German, boarded the Concorde Air France Flight 4590. This was a trip of a lifetime for many people, as Concorde was restricted to the wealthy class of people. The excitement in people was cut short by the unfortunate delay in flight, because of maintenance in one of its engines. The passengers boarded the plane a couple of hours after the scheduled time. Finally, it was cleared for taxi on runway 26-Right. The pilots lined the aircraft parallel to the runway. A tragic accident, however, was about to befall.
The National Incident Management System (NIMS) provides standard command and management structures that apply to response. This common system enables responders from different jurisdictions and disciplines to work together to respond to incidents. Governments at all levels should organize to support effective response. The leader of each government organization should vest the official responsible for response activities with sufficient authority to meet the organization’s responsibilities under the Framework. Government agencies at all levels are encouraged to conduct a thorough, systematic inventory of their response resources and to conform to NIMS organizational and management principles as noted above. Government agencies should also ensure they have a cadre of personnel (which can include full-time employees, temporary or surge personnel, and contractors) who are trained in incident management and response principles and organized into teams. Personnel and equipment can be organized to provide a particular function or mission capability. Governments at all levels should use the NIMS resource management principles described below to enhance response capabilities. • Individual Resources. Resources are organized by category, kind,
Plane crashes occur for a number of reasons. There seems to be a consensus with the general public that flying is dangerous, engines fail and planes crash. That is true some times, although the majority of plane crashes occur largely due to a combination of human error and mechanical failure. In much of aviations accidents mechanical failure has been a contributing factor. It is impossible however to blame plane crashes on one reason since events leading up to an accident are so varied. Reasoning for plane crashes can be placed in a broad number of categories.
The disaster I’ve chosen would be 9/11 and it was a man-made disaster. The two media sources that I have chosen is the History Channel and the Encyclopedia. The disaster took place in New York City at the Twin Tower. On September 11, 2001 at 8:45 a.m. on Tuesday that’s when the disaster started. What happened at the 9/11 was a jet fuel crashed into the North Tower of the world trade in New York City. The people who was there were citizens who work in the Twin Tower, firefighters were there to help, and people who was walking around the Twin Tower. This man-made disaster happened because we were attacked and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed planned to have “America’s Darkest Day”
The Japan disaster was devastating, and it had an abundance of causes and effects. The nuclear disaster, the tsunami, and the earthquake were the causes of the disaster in Japan. In addition, the disaster had countless effects on the land and people in Japan. The disaster in Japan was as devastating and tragic as 9/11. Both events took a great number of lives and left their country shocked, but prepared them for anything similar that might happen in the future. Knowing the causes and effects of Japan’s disaster can prepare other people and countries around the world for a comparable disaster.
The primary cause is of airplane accidents does at some stage contain an element of a person being unable to discharge his duties correctly and in an accurate manner. More than 53% accidents are the result of ignorance or faults by the pilot during flight. Other staff is responsible for about 8% accidents. The most obvious errors by pilot are made during the take off or landing on the runway. Additionally errors can occur during the maintenance of the airplane outside the plane, whereby a lack of thorough inspection and oversight can lead to complication during mid-flight. Fueling and loading of the plane also sometimes create problems (Shapiro, 2001).
2. Detection of Incidents: It cannot succeed in responding to incidents if an organization cannot detect incidents effectively. Therefore, one of the most important aspects of incident response is the detection of incidents phase. It is also one of the most fragmented phases, in which incident response expertise has the least control. Suspected incidents may be detected in innumerable ways.