Mock Crash Drill Features Real Conflict : Preparedness: Burbank Airport officials test an emergency-response plan. Dealing with the press is a primary concern.

Two hours after lime-green smoke escaped from the fusillade of what was supposed to be a downed DC-4 Saturday, student reporter Lesley Hall was roaming among volunteers feigning life-threatening injuries, trying to capture a few good quotes.

But a police officer who had twice driven her off the field spotted her and said, “Hey, put her in the van,” and locked her up with a grief-crazed victim.

Hall said she couldn’t believe the officer was serious, but it was his job to herd reporters off the field during a three-hour mock disaster at Burbank Airport.

“The idea is to test the airport’s emergency plan and the coordination of outside agencies with that plan,” said Bob Anderson, assistant manager of airport operations. It was the airport’s first emergency drill in five years.

In the drill, an airplane carrying 86 people supposedly loses power, hits a fence, breaks up and slides to a halt. About 200 volunteers, mostly from the Red Cross, acted as victims and worried relatives while journalism students from Pasadena City College avidly embraced the role of pack journalists.

Victims were laid on the Tarmac and “treated” by about 85 firefighters from four cities, Burbank police, the Los Angeles County coroner’s office and airport rescuers.

Airport officials wanted to determine how well they could handle the horde of reporters expected in a real emergency.

Through hand-held radios, rescuers practiced providing information to the airport’s spokesman standing before student reporters.

Spokesman Victor Gill said the airport’s effectiveness in handling reporters is hard to evaluate, because student reporters wandered among rescue operations while most actual reporters do not.

“People who do that should not be able to stay at the scene to cover the story,” Gill said. “However, the ability to enforce that is something else.”

Anderson, who has been at the scene of five airport-area crashes, recalled how reporters behaved during those accidents.

“They were agitated in the beginning because we didn’t get them as close as they wanted to,” he said. “Reporters are initially very aggressive until they get what they’re looking for. Then they calm down and are ready to wait for the public information officer to show up and give them more in-depth information. We try to train our emergency responders to respond to the press as best as they can.”

If the airport fails to provide reporters access, “they’ll find a way to get in, they always do,” Anderson said. “Then it’s a bigger problem. It’s easier to work with them.”

Sgt. Bob Klein of the airport police got a laugh out of seeing student reporters among the rescue operations. Although his officers were not successful in keeping the journalism students from the accident site, Klein said, “For the personnel we had, I think we did an ample job.”

Student Arlene Rieux said the police were harassing the press. “I felt instead of harassing the press, the police should have controlled the survivors, the victims who were walking around, passing out and in total shock.”

A video of the exercise will be shown to the Burbank City Council in an effort to help the city develop its disaster preparedness plan. Airport and rescue officials plan to critique the response Friday.