Most people, even those who work at an airport have no idea what an “Alert” is, but they may have heard the term once or twice. To put it simply, Alerts are when aircraft encounter a problem and the pilot informs Air Traffic Control (ATC) who passes the information onto airport authorities through the proper means, typically AVCOM (Aviation Communications) who then signals ARFF units (Aircraft Rescue & Fire Fighting) and Airport Operations.

Alerts are classified into three types:

• ALERT I– is reported when an aircraft has a minor problem. This would include an oil leak, one engine out on a three or four engine aircraft, or one engine out on a twin engine general aviation aircraft weighing less than 12,500 lbs. During an Alert I, the fire department and rescue equipment will stand by near the fire house (on the airfield) and Operations will respond to the approach end of the landing runway. Once the aircraft has landed, Operations will conduct a sweep of the runway for any FOD and turn it back over to ATC. The Alert would then be terminated provided the aircraft landed without incident and is able to taxi to the ramp on its own.

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