Federal Aviation Administration airport evacuation study guides airport protocol based on priority of incident

KANSAS CITY, Mo - With safety always a top priority for airport administrators, certain events will trigger evacuations.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) commissioned a study just last year to look at this issue.

Investigators looked at 36 commercial airports of all sizes.

They found the highest priority incident type calling for an evacuation was most frequently a natural disaster.

This included snowstorms, earthquakes and tornadoes.

Further down on the list are structure fires, power failures and security breaches -- like Tuesday's incident at KCI.

The priority list for evacuations included bomb threats and active shooter situations.

The study said airports need to have a terminal incident response plan in place for evacuations -- which includes a plan to get operations back to normal.

Tuesday's partial evacuation comes as KCI has become an increasingly busy airport.

More than a million passengers passed through the terminals in July alone.

It was the first month the airport eclipsed that mark since 2008.

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