CHICAGO (AP) — A $7.4 million simulator at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport will prepare first-responders for rescues aboard superjumbo jets.
The city is taking precautionary measures to prepare firefighters after an engine fire took down an American Airlines plane at an O’Hare runway last year. Fire and smoke forced 170 passengers and crew members to exit the plane. More than 20 people were injured.
The contract funded by airline revenues calls for Simulation Live Fire Training Solutions, Inc. to build a new “triple-deck, large-frame aircraft simulator.” The simulator and accompanying software will include a rotating cabin engineered to simulate a broken jet.
Assistant Deputy Fire Commissioner Tim Sampey says the cabin was made to replicate a 1989 United Airlines jet crash in Sioux City, Iowa that killed 111 people.
