That's a negative ghostrider

Yesterday we got a selcall telling us to head for a small commercial and domestic airport nearby. A plane was coming in and was apparently in trouble with 3 people and 700 litres of fuel on board. It was a small twin engined plane with issues with its landing gear. I straight away (and very professionally) thought Cool this should be worth a look!

We jumped in the truck and headed out to the staging area where we were meeting the other emergency services, thinking we would find a single fire truck and some old guy from the airport telling us where to park. We pulled off the freeway and there was an absolute sea of flashing lights, police cars, fire trucks, airport vehicles, ambulances, managers, about a hundred people all milling around wearing reflective yellow vests. Not wanting to be left out, my partner and I donned (I love that word) our high visibility gear and went to find the commander in charge.

We were told to follow a couple of fire trucks out onto the tarmac area to standby. The plane was going to do a fly-by of the tower to see if the landing gear was down. Fortunately it was, but the lights in the cockpit said otherwise so we were all poised, ready to clean up the results. After circling for a while to dump fuel, finally the plane appeared again and there was a brief tense moment as it touched down when we all waited to see if the landing gear would hold. I'm happy to say it was a textbook landing and the plane rolled to a stop without incident. So I'm slightly bummed I didn't get to see them bury the plane in fire retardant foam, but I'm glad everyone was ok.

We took off our vests and cleared from the job after having a quick chat to some of the other crews there. Almost immediately the MDT let out that sound and we were dispatched to an Unknown Problem - Third party caller. That pretty much says it all. Armed with just slightly more than no information we headed back out into the afternoon.