Fieldwork Analysis of Figurants' Involvement in an Airplane Crash Simulation in Order to Improve the Realism of the Exercise

Aircraft crash simulation is a mandatory exercise for all international airports. The procedure of such a simulation is that a set of figurants play out a given plane crash scenario. Then, all professional bodies-such as police, fire brigades, medical care professionals, airport staff, and airline companies-react to the figurants' role play. The quality of the overall problem resolution is evaluated by the national civil aviation regulator. We postulate that the closer the figurants' staging corresponds to reality, the more relevant the simulation exercise will be in training professionals involved in resolving an actual accident. To our knowledge, very little literature focuses on improving the performance of figurants (research objective). In this research, we conducted a fieldwork study (methodology) during a recent official exercise at Sion Airport in Switzerland. Based on the fieldwork analysis (results), we propose a new staging model (findings) to improve similar simulation exercises (implication).