Emergency exercise to take place at Cork Airport to test readiness of agencies to respond to major incident 

An emergency hours of darkness exercise is to take place at Cork Airport this evening to test the readiness of the airport and other agencies to deal with a major incident.

The exercise, which begins at 7.45pm, will involve airline personnel based at Cork Airport, the Irish Aviation Authority, An Garda Síochána, Cork City Fire Brigade, The National Ambulance Service and the Health Services Executive.

It will run for approximately two hours. 

Cork Airport is advising that there will be no impact to the flight schedule and there will be no exercise activities in the terminal building. 

There will however be some emergency service vehicles operating in the vicinity of and at Cork Airport tonight as part of this exercise.

Kevin Cullinane, daa Group Head of Communications, said: "The purpose of the exercise is to test the internal emergency plan and the response of the external emergency service partners in implementing the Inter Agency Emergency Plan for Cork Airport. The exercise will not impact on flight operations and the public should not be alarmed if they see emergency vehicles in operation around the vicinity of Cork Airport tonight between the hours of 7.45pm and 9.45pm."

The exercise is required under safety regulations.