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Jacksonville Health Care, Aviation and Emergency Response Teams Conduct Multi-Agency Mass Casualty Exercise
Exercise simulated severe turbulence during final approach, resulting in three injured occupants and a coordinated response involving pediatric critical care, fire-rescue, airport and fixed-wing air medical teams.
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — October 2026 — Health care, aviation, emergency response and medical transport teams from across Jacksonville came together Oct. 1 for a multi-agency Mass Casualty Exercise at Hangar 1 at Jacksonville Executive at Craig Airport, designed to test how regional partners would coordinate during an aviation-related medical emergency.
The exercise brought together Atlas Air Ambulance, Wolfson Children’s Hospital Kids Kare Critical Care Transport, the Jacksonville Fire and Rescue Department (JFRD), Jacksonville Aviation Authority (JAA) and Baptist Health. An Atlas Air Ambulance aircraft was incorporated into the drill, allowing participating organizations to work through a coordinated response spanning pediatric critical care, emergency medical services, airport operations and fixed-wing medical transportation.
The simulated scenario began with an aircraft encountering severe turbulence during final approach into Jacksonville Executive at Craig Airport. Three occupants were identified as injured: a Kids Kare critical care transport nurse, an infant patient and the infant’s mother. The scenario created a particular challenge for responders because a member of the medical team who would ordinarily be responsible for helping manage the pediatric patient had also become a casualty.
“What made this scenario especially valuable from a clinical perspective was that the medical team was not assumed to be unaffected by the emergency. With the transport nurse injured alongside an infant patient and the patient’s mother, the responding teams had to immediately reassess priorities, redistribute responsibilities and establish continuity of care. That kind of disruption is exactly why multidisciplinary training matters—it forces us to think beyond the expected sequence of events and prepare for what happens when the original plan is no longer available.”
— Brent Bassitt, BS, FP-C
Director of Clinical Operations, Atlas Air Ambulance
No flight was conducted as part of the exercise. Instead, the Atlas aircraft taxied away from Hangar 1 and later returned to simulate an aircraft arriving following the in-flight emergency. That approach allowed participating teams to focus on the response after the aircraft reached the ground, including aircraft access, initial assessment of the injured occupants, clinical handoffs, patient movement and coordination among emergency responders, hospital personnel, pediatric transport specialists, airport representatives and the air medical team.
Although the exercise involved a relatively small simulated mass-casualty event with three injured occupants, its limited scale allowed teams to closely evaluate the points at which their individual responsibilities intersect. Aviation emergencies can quickly require organizations operating under different procedures and areas of authority to function as a coordinated response, particularly when an aircraft is already carrying a medically complex patient.
For the Kids Kare team, the exercise introduced the added complexity of continuing care for an infant patient while accounting for an injured member of the transport team and the patient’s injured mother. Wolfson Children’s Kids Kare provides specialized critical care transportation for infants and children throughout North Florida and South Georgia, using pediatric and neonatal clinical teams and specialized transport resources. The scenario allowed those capabilities to be integrated with the response functions of JFRD, JAA, Baptist Health and Atlas Air Ambulance.
JFRD’s participation brought pre-hospital emergency response and patient assessment into the scenario, while Jacksonville Aviation Authority personnel contributed the operational perspective required when an emergency occurs within an airport environment. Jacksonville Executive at Craig Airport is part of the four-airport system owned and managed by JAA, making airport coordination an important element of any response involving an aircraft on the field.
Baptist Health’s involvement added the hospital-system perspective to a scenario in which injured occupants could require continued evaluation, treatment or transfer following the initial emergency response. Together, the participating organizations were able to evaluate not only their own procedures but also how information, responsibilities and patient care would transition between teams.
“Exercises like this are an important part of how we prepare for the unexpected. In a real aviation or medical emergency, no organization operates independently. Hospitals, first responders, airport personnel, clinical teams and aviation operators all have to communicate and adapt quickly. Bringing those groups together in a realistic training environment allows us to evaluate our plans, strengthen those relationships and make sure the systems supporting our growth are just as prepared as the people carrying out the mission.”
— Maureen Nordike, MBA, RN Chief Operating Officer, Atlas Air Ambulance
Exercise Supports FAA Safety Management System Preparedness
For Atlas Air Ambulance, the Oct. 1 exercise also supported the company’s ongoing Safety Management System implementation, internal emergency preparedness procedures and compliance efforts under 14 CFR Part 5.
Section 5.27, Coordination of Emergency Response Planning, addresses several components of emergency preparedness, including the delegation of emergency authority, assignment of employee responsibilities during an emergency and coordination of an organization’s emergency response plan with the emergency response plans of other affected organizations it must interface with while providing its services.
For an air medical operation, those interfaces can extend well beyond the aircraft itself. Hospitals, emergency medical services, airport authorities, ground transportation providers, clinical transport teams, contractors and other aviation partners can all become part of a coordinated response when an abnormal or emergency event occurs.
The Oct. 1 exercise provided an opportunity to move those planning requirements beyond written procedures and into a controlled operational environment. By bringing several of those organizations together around a single scenario, participating teams could evaluate how emergency plans, communication procedures and operational responsibilities function when multiple agencies are required to respond simultaneously.
The exercise was not intended to replicate every element of a large-scale disaster. Instead, the smaller scenario allowed participants to concentrate on the transitions that often determine how effectively a response unfolds: who assumes responsibility at each stage, how information moves between organizations, how injured patients are prioritized and transferred, and how aviation and medical operations continue safely when circumstances change unexpectedly.
Training Together Before an Emergency
Multi-agency exercises provide organizations with something written emergency plans alone cannot fully create: familiarity with the people, procedures and capabilities of the teams they may need to work alongside during a real event.
A hospital system, pediatric transport program, fire-rescue department, airport authority and fixed-wing air medical provider can each maintain well-developed emergency procedures independently. During an actual aviation emergency, however, those separate systems may need to function as a single coordinated response within minutes.
Training together allows teams to identify potential communication gaps, clarify responsibilities and better understand the operational requirements of the organizations around them before those relationships are tested under real-world conditions.
For Atlas Air Ambulance, the exercise also reflected the increasingly interconnected nature of fixed-wing medical transportation. A typical patient mission may already involve pilots, flight clinicians, sending and receiving hospitals, ground ambulance providers, case managers, airport personnel and operations teams. An unexpected event can disrupt that carefully coordinated process quickly, increasing the importance of advance planning and strong working relationships.
By conducting the exercise in an operational airport environment while using ground aircraft movement to simulate the completion of a flight, participating organizations were able to rehearse those procedures in a realistic setting without conducting an unnecessary flight solely for training purposes.
The Oct. 1 exercise ultimately gave Jacksonville’s health care, aviation, emergency response and medical transport communities an opportunity to strengthen the connections between their respective systems. While the simulated incident involved three injured individuals, the communication, coordination and operational lessons developed through the exercise can support preparedness for events of considerably greater complexity.
The objective was simple: practice together before circumstances require these organizations to respond together.
Participating Organizations
Atlas Air Ambulance Jacksonville-based fixed-wing air medical transportation provider serving patients throughout the United States and internationally.
Wolfson Children’s Hospital Kids Kare Critical Care Transport Pediatric and neonatal critical care transport program serving children throughout North Florida and South Georgia.
Jacksonville Fire and Rescue Department (JFRD) Jacksonville’s fire-rescue and emergency medical response agency.
Jacksonville Aviation Authority (JAA) Owner and operator of Jacksonville’s airport system, including Jacksonville Executive at Craig Airport.
Jacksonville Executive at Craig Airport The Jacksonville Aviation Authority general aviation airport where the Oct. 1 exercise was conducted.
Baptist HealthJacksonville-based health care system serving Northeast Florida.
Media Contact
Bailey Bruce
Marketing & Communications
Atlas Air Ambulance
bailey.m.bruce@gmail.com | (904)651-8691
About Atlas Air Ambulance
Atlas Air Ambulance is a Jacksonville-based fixed-wing air medical transportation provider supporting medically necessary patient transport throughout the United States and internationally. Atlas coordinates bedside-to-bedside medical transportation in collaboration with physicians, hospitals, case managers, ground transportation providers and receiving facilities, with services that include fixed-wing air ambulance transport, critical care medical flights, international medical repatriation, organ and specialty transport, and other medically supported missions.
For additional information, visit Atlas Air Ambulance.
