The Government delegate in the Canary Islands, Anselmo Pestana, has inaugurated the course today Institutional coordination in the assistance to victims of civil aviation accidents and their families, organized by the National School of Civil Protection of the General Directorate of Civil Protection and Emergencies of the Ministry of the Interior and which will take place until next Thursday in Gran Canaria.
The inauguration of the course was also attended by the Subdelegate of the Government in Las Palmas, Teresa Mayans, the Deputy Director General of Prevention, Planning and Emergencies of the Ministry of the Interior, Benjamín Salvago, and the Director General of Emergencies of the Government of the Canary Islands, Fernando Figuereo.
This training activity, coordinated in the Canary Islands by the Civil Protection Unit of the Government Delegation with the collaboration of AENA, aims to address all aspects of civil aviation accidents in the search for a coordination of institutions and agencies working in the assistance to victims of civil aviation accidents and their families.
Therefore, representatives of the General Administration of the State and the Autonomous Community of the Canary Islands, of the State Security Forces and Bodies, of the Administration of Justice, of the Institute of Legal Medicine, of the Consular Body, of the Red Cross and of the Official College of Psychology of Las Palmas participate, as well as a representation of the Association of Flight Sufferers JK5022, headed by its president, Pilar Vera.
“The purpose of the training of these three days is to know the role and responsibility of all the actors involved in the assistance in order to achieve a unified and engaged response in each of the pieces involved. Knowing the scope of each function and the multidisciplinary scope is to gain in efficiency, and this asset must be our main objective, especially when it comes to attending to those who suffer a great tragedy,” said the government delegate in the Canary Islands.
Anselmo Pestana has highlighted the importance of air connectivity for the Canary Islands from a commercial point of view and “even from a social perspective”, and has valued not only the convening of this type of courses, but also the carrying out of simulations to perfect the response procedures.
"In the area of major disasters," he added, "it is difficult to respond as quickly as possible, and it is not always entirely correct with the measures adopted. For that reason, this type of training generates the necessary training to create habits and improve procedures, but when it comes to assisting people, it helps to create the awareness that the purpose to be achieved is to allow the affected people to have the appropriate tools to cope with the loss, and this is only achieved when it is added in coordination and a work team is created.”
Training in an archipelago of high air traffic
The celebration of this course in the Canary Islands acquires special relevance within the activities of the National School of Civil Protection because commercial air transport is a key factor in the tourism sector and because the archipelago has a volume of air traffic well above the Spanish average, with the possibility of accepting transoceanic flights when any emergency occurs in full flight due to its geographical suitability and operational capacity.
The training is carried out in three major blocks, starting with the regulations governing assistance in civil aviation accidents and knowledge of the civil protection plans that are activated in such cases, as well as the study of the psychosocial part and the emergency actions of the consulates and the interventions of the scientific police, forensic doctors and the judiciary.
The National School of Civil Protection of the Ministry of the Interior, in its role of structuring the training of the various components of the National Civil Protection System, includes this training activity in the Canary Islands as a need to train contact persons, together with the agencies, services and institutions that in one way or another are part of the community of assistance to people affected by civil aviation accidents and their families.
The course, which takes place at the headquarters of the Government Delegation in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, is completed with the exercise of a partial simulation of formative assistance to victims at Gran Canaria Airport by the attendees, among whom are responsible, technicians and professionals of the Public Administrations, agencies and different services involved in civil aviation accidents.