saw this on the way to Portland's airport

[beencounting]

At about 2pm 5/7/08, this sinister thick black plume appeared and I thought the airport would be shut down. But nothing, and all flights were on time. Later, read on the net that this was a drill. Has anyone heard of a drill at a major airport where they do this sort of thing?

 

[jmatt]

A lot of airports do this. It's for the airport fire control folks.

It teaches them how to handle jet fuel fires. Usually, it's just a big pool of fuel set off, then the firefighters come in with their equipment (foam generators and stuff) to put it out.

They used to do it at least once a year at Mueller here in Austin I got to watch oncr, pretty cool stuff. My dad's a now retired fire marshall, and he would go out sometimes and observe, he let me go along once when I was a kid.

 

[chuychanga]

Just a month or two after Sept 11, they blew up the old Hyatt (?) hotel that sat right at the terminal at DFW. I wondered how many people saw the explosion and didn't realize what was happening.

 

[rickysrun]

that picture just ate my monitor

 

[Lat22]

That would be disconcerting.

 

[Ignatius]

It looks like they just set a bunch of skinheads on fire...

 

[Gardner Barnes]

weird....i was probably in that cab in your picture..if not that one, one that arrived at the terminal within 20 minutes of when you did.

freaky timing.