ENTEBBE– Uganda Civil Aviation Authority in collaboration with key aviation and emergency response stakeholders have successfully concluded a mandatory full scale emergency exercise to test for Entebbe International Airport’s readiness in case of an emergency. The exercise is in line with international best practices.
The two-hour exercise activated at 1309 hours involved simulation of an East Sky Airlines (pseudo name) flight with 95 passengers and 5 crew on board.
The exercise tests inter-agency coordination, assesses incident command, evaluates emergency medical services, and measures collaboration in high stress conditions, among others.
“It was presumed that 26 people lost their ‘lives’ and 33 were ‘injured’, which sparked off an emergency involving airport fire-fighters and other rescue agencies that were called in to ‘save lives’. 41 people were successfully rescued by Airport Rescue and Fire-fighting services. The exercise helped us to simulate emergency plans and procedures, communication framework, response times and coordination abilities of the participants,” said Mr. Fred Bamwesigye, the director general of Uganda civil aviation authority while speaking to journalists shortly after the exercise
The presumed victims and critically injured were rushed to hospitals in Entebbe and Kampala.
“I commend the over 600 participants from 50 participating agencies, including airport stakeholders, medical service providers, security agencies, public and private fire-fighting service companies, among others for taking part in the exercise aimed at testing the airport and stakeholders’ capacity to deal with an emergency.” he said.
Mr Bamwesigye used the opportunity to share the latest traffic statistics through Entebbe International Airport, which indicate an increase in the April 2025 performance in terms of passenger and cargo traffic.
In April 2025, Entebbe Airport facilitated 93,194 arrivals and 92,272 departures, a total of 185,466 international passengers, which is an average of 6,182 passengers per day compared to an average of 5,490 per day recorded in April 2024. The April 2025 figure is higher than the April 2024 figure by 20,761 passengers.
In relation to cargo, imports were 2,088 metric tons and exports were 4,010 metric tons, a total of 6,098 metric tons in April 2025 compared to the total of 5,721 metric tons of cargo in April 2024.
