Drivers and residents near Bellingham International Airport should be aware of some unusual activity this Saturday morning. The Port of Bellingham is hosting a full-scale emergency exercise at BLI on Saturday, September 19, starting at 10 a.m., simulating an aircraft incident to test the airport's emergency preparedness systems and inter-agency coordination.
The drill is required by the Federal Aviation Administration every three years for certificated airports. The goal is to test BLI's Airport Emergency Plan, including emergency communications, medical response, and coordination among airport staff, city, county, and regional partners. This year's exercise marks the latest in a series of required drills that Bellingham International has conducted over the decades to maintain its FAA certification.
For most travelers passing through BLI on a typical Saturday, the airport functions quietly in the background of regional life. But keeping it safe and compliant with federal regulations requires ongoing investment in planning, training, and coordination that rarely makes headlines. Triennial exercises like this one are one of the most visible and operationally intensive components of that work, demanding real-time coordination across more than a dozen organizations and testing the limits of what the local emergency response network can handle.
Who Is Participating
The exercise involves a wide range of agencies and organizations across Whatcom County and beyond. Participating groups include the Bellingham Fire Department, the Whatcom County Sheriff's Office and its Division of Emergency Management, Bellingham Aviation Services, Holiday Inn, the American Red Cross, the Whatcom County Community Emergency Response Team, Whatcom Transportation Authority, the Bellingham Police Department, PeaceHealth St. Joseph Medical Center, Allegiant Airlines, and the Volunteer Mobilization Center.
The broad list of participants reflects the scale of a real airport emergency, which would require rapid coordination among first responders, hospital staff, transportation providers, and volunteer organizations. Each agency brings a distinct role to the response. The Bellingham Fire Department would lead aircraft rescue and firefighting operations. The Whatcom County Sheriff's Office would handle perimeter security and crowd control. Whatcom Transportation Authority could be called upon to move large numbers of people away from a scene. PeaceHealth St. Joseph Medical Center, located on Hospital Drive in Bellingham, serves as the region's main trauma center and would be a critical partner in any actual aircraft incident at BLI, receiving and treating injured passengers in a mass casualty scenario.
Allegiant Airlines is among the commercial carriers currently serving BLI, and its participation reflects the airline's responsibility to coordinate with airport and emergency personnel in the event of an incident involving one of its aircraft. Holiday Inn's inclusion in the exercise likely reflects its proximity to the airport and its potential role in housing displaced passengers, family members, and response personnel during an extended incident.
The Volunteer Mobilization Center is also seeking 50 adult volunteers to serve as simulated passengers and their family members during the exercise. Volunteers play a key role in making the drill realistic by giving responders actual people to triage, treat, transport, and account for rather than running through scenarios in the abstract. Those who are interested were asked to complete an online registration form and attend a one- to two-hour virtual briefing on the evening of Friday, September 18 or Saturday, September 19. Participants receive a Washington State Temporary Emergency Worker number. For more information, email EM_Volunteer@whatcomcounty.us.
The American Red Cross and the Whatcom County Community Emergency Response Team round out the volunteer and nonprofit side of the response network. The Red Cross provides disaster relief services including shelter, food, and mental health support, all of which would be activated in a real aircraft emergency. Community Emergency Response Team members receive standardized training in basic disaster response and serve as a force multiplier when professional responders are stretched thin.
About Bellingham International Airport
Bellingham International Airport, or BLI, is a single-runway FAA-regulated facility offering year-round nonstop commercial air service to Seattle, Portland, Las Vegas, Phoenix-Mesa, and the San Juan Islands, with seasonal service to San Diego. The airport is also a designated International Port of Entry with U.S. Customs and Immigration inspection services, making it a gateway for both domestic travelers and international visitors arriving from Canada and beyond.
That international designation adds a layer of complexity to emergency planning at BLI that purely domestic regional airports do not face. An incident involving an international arrival, for example, could implicate Customs and Border Protection protocols alongside standard aircraft emergency procedures. The airport's dual role as both a commercial passenger facility and a general aviation hub also means that its emergency plans must account for a wider variety of aircraft types and incident scenarios than a single-use facility would require.
BLI has experienced significant changes in recent years. In June 2026, Uber returned to the airport after a four-year absence, improving ground transportation options for arriving passengers. The Port of Bellingham secured a $23.5 million federal grant in July 2026 to modernize the Bellingham Shipping Terminal, part of broader capital investment in Port facilities. And just this week, Amtrak announced that new Airo trainsets will begin service on the Cascades route stopping at Bellingham starting September 30, adding another transportation connection to BLI's regional access network. Together, these developments paint a picture of a regional transportation hub that is actively expanding its capacity and connectivity, making robust emergency preparedness planning all the more important.
What Happens Next and Why It Matters
Emergency exercises like this one serve a dual purpose. They give responding agencies a chance to work through coordination gaps and communication protocols in a controlled environment, and they demonstrate ongoing compliance with federal aviation safety regulations. For a smaller regional airport like BLI, the exercise is also an opportunity to assess how well the local mutual aid network would hold up under a major incident.
In a real aircraft emergency, the first minutes are critical. Communication between the airport control tower, airline operations staff, fire and medical responders, and hospital emergency departments must happen quickly and accurately. Exercises reveal where those communication chains break down, where roles are ambiguous, and where resource gaps exist. The after-action review that follows a full-scale exercise is often where the most valuable improvements are identified, informing updates to the Airport Emergency Plan that carry forward until the next triennial drill.
There is also a community benefit to conducting these exercises publicly rather than behind closed doors. When residents see emergency vehicles staged near the airport and understand that it is a planned drill, it reinforces awareness of what a real response would look like and encourages confidence in local preparedness systems. For Whatcom County, which sits in a region that can face everything from winter weather events to industrial incidents, maintaining a culture of preparedness across agencies and the public is an ongoing priority.
The Whatcom County Division of Emergency Management plays a central role in county-wide preparedness planning. Its involvement in the BLI drill alongside city agencies, hospital staff, and community volunteers illustrates the kind of layered response system that Whatcom County has built over years of planning and training. The Division coordinates not just for aviation incidents but for the full spectrum of hazards facing the county, from earthquakes and tsunamis to hazardous materials releases and public health emergencies.
Residents who live near the airport or have early morning travel plans on Saturday should be aware that the exercise begins at 10 a.m. and is expected to run through the early afternoon. There is no expected disruption to actual flight operations, but the presence of emergency vehicles and personnel in exercise mode near the facility may be visible from surrounding roads. For the latest updates on airport operations and Port of Bellingham news, visit the Port of Bellingham website. More background on recent local emergency preparedness efforts can be found in earlier coverage of Bellingham Fire Department training milestones from this year.
