Crashtenders at Schiphol

In addition to regular firefighting duties in buildings and traffic at airports, there is also aircraft incident response. A specific vehicle has been developed for this purpose, namely the “Crashtender”. For the renewal and expansion of the existing fleet, 18 of these crashtenders have been put out to international tender.

It is up to the fire brigade to extinguish an aircraft fire within five minutes using these crash tenders. This means that the crew has 45 seconds to respond, 135 seconds to arrive at the scene and 120 seconds to extinguish the fire.

Below are the specifications of the AAS crash tender:

• Two 700 hp Volvo Penta engines

• Over 13,000 litres of water

• 1,600 litres of foam

• 250 kg of powder

• Weight: over 48,000 kg

• Acceleration from 0 to 80 kilometres per hour in 22.3 seconds

• Acceleration from 0 to 120 kilometres per hour in 38.6 seconds

• Maximum speed of 155 kilometres per hour

The crash tenders deployed at RTHA and LLA are smaller in capacity than the specifications described above.

To ensure safe driving in poor visibility or fog, every crash tender is equipped with a driving aid (screen – visual) and a tablet provides a view of all vehicles (including cars, lorries and pushback vehicles) present on the runway. This is done by means of transponders. These transponders transmit all the necessary data on the vehicles and aircraft present, and this data can be used to target the incident response. In the event of an incident, the control tower or the fire brigade's control room uses a computer on the tablet to indicate where the incident is taking place at the airport. When the crew is dispatched, the system immediately indicates the shortest route and the crew in the vehicle is already informed about the incident.

In the event of an incident, three crash tenders are always dispatched at the same time and a total of 42,500 litres of extinguishing fluid can be applied within 80 seconds. A thermal imaging camera can be used to locate the source of an internal fire with precision, and the fire can be fought by piercing the fuselage of the aircraft with an extinguishing lance.

The crash tender is equipped with two fire monitors with a capacity of 4,000 and 6,000 litres per minute, and a hydraulic arm can spray extinguishing liquid from a height of 15.5 metres for cooling purposes.

Project carried out by Jan Roelof Kooreman