Wondering if anyone heard about the accident. Montgomery Airport worker taken into a passenger jets engine. I cant imagine. I saw the aircraft and it does not seem a large airliner like most. I think there may have been a maintainance issue with the aircraft and at least 1 engine was not shut down. The worker was not supposed to walk in front of its engines.

Yes I saw this, a accident caused by taking shortcuts. The ground worker crossed in front of the running engine to go to the luggage compartment on the other side of the aircraft, inside of the danger zone. The engine was left running to provide power for the aircraft as the APU was not operational. It is common for the APU to need repair, it is not required to keep operating the aircraft. It is normally used on the ground only to provide the aircraft power. Even at idle these engines pull in a lot of air, The worker took a short cut and it cost her life. She was supposed to walk around the nose of the aircraft and then in front of the right engine that was not running.

Thank you. I didnt know what a APU was. Had to look it up. Yes the safety zones marked on the concrete. Man when they say work safely, they mean work safely. I believe it was spelled Embraer 170? They said even those engines can suck up water from the runway. The lady has 3 children left behind.

Yeah buddy, that and people walking right into a spinning prop. Done and gone.

It seems as if everything gets called an accident. I spent a lot of years as safety guy in trucking and transportation.

There are very few true accidents, no matter what industry or situation. The vast majority are errors, goofs, inattention, shortcuts, developed bad habits, deviations, and so on. “Incidents” is a good descriptive term, and of that many incidents are from multiple fails that cascade to a bad outcome.
.

Gotta keep head your on a swivel.

Too many times you see rampers either being lazy with their procedures or, too nonchalant with safety. Sometimes a tragedy like this is necessary to remind everyone of the dangers that exists and to pay attention.

19 Year old kids manage on an aircraft flight deck, which is a much busier place.

This is so, so tragic and was PREVENTABLE with Threat and Error Management.

A lot of shit is going on around an airplane on the ramp. By themselves individually and in normal ops, they’re not really a threat. When all these activities are happening all at once, though, the threat and error risk rises sharply. When I’m doing walk-arounds, my head is on a swivel, as any one vehicle out of about 30 zipping around the ramp area could take me out. Had a co-worker get side-swiped on the ramp by an accordian bus some years. He survived and returned to flying, but it banged him up pretty badly. Not EVERY vehicle goes turtle slow on the ramp, either.

Had a contract mechanic get sucked into a Continental B737 engine doing a static run-up at the gate in El Paso years ago (was still with Continental Express). He was checking for leaks at the safe side of the engine, his hat blew off, and when he lunged to retrieve his hat, it was just enough to put him in the warning/transgression zone. He got sucked into the intake of an engine at full static power. I don’t even want to know what that looked like…

Bottom line, sadly, human error was the cause of death on both his and this lady’s part. As Sgt. Barnes would say, “Keep your shit WIRED!!”

^^^^^^^^^^
I do recall someone getting sucked into a jet turbine and coming out the other side unharmed. I guess miracles do happen.

Wow. That guy that went through a engine and survived is one lucky fella. I cant imagine a human going through that and being anything short of ground up. Even more so a huge jet engine.

quote:

Originally posted by David Lee:
Wow. That guy that went through a engine and survived is one lucky fella. I cant imagine a human going through that and being anything short of ground up. Even more so a huge jet engine.

He didn't go through.

The ramp is an extremely noisy place. APUs make a huge amount of noise, as loud as an idling jet engine. Plus there are usually other aircraft taxiing around with their engines making lots of noise. Tugs, bag loading belts, and other vehicles add to the din.

So it is not unusual to not hear the added noise of a running engine.

Humans build habits and have assumptions, and I bet this person had a history of cutting through the safety zone with the assumption the engines were shut down.

Usually the engines are shut down as soon as possible once the parking brake is set, very specifically to reduce the danger.

Years ago, in the middle of an air show, I caught one of the kids on my crew slowly creeping closer to a spinning propeller. Not wanting to disrupt the show sequence in front of the spectators I tried, several times, to call his name just loud enough to be heard over the engine, but not loud enough to be heard by the crowd, but the kid was totally tuned-out, and oblivious to the danger. When he got within a foot or so of the buzz saw I reached and grabbed him by his collar and yanked him forcefully backwards and away. He looked at me with total surprise, like I had just lost my mind. Later, when I could quietly pull him off the flight line, away from others, we had a nice long talk about maintaining SA around a/c.

I've been hit by a spinning aircraft propeller, twice, but it wasn't due to inattention to safety, but while hand propping them.

This was obviously a commuter aircraft as that's all they fly into and out of MGM. (A prime reason I started driving to ATL when I was working.)

It would seem to me that on the ground at ground idle power, she must have gotten really close to be ingested into the engine. Lots of unknowns in this sad story.

Years ago, at BNA, we had a kid (ramp rat) walk into the spinning prop on a King Air one night. He lived but as you can imagine, was injured very badly.

On the heart runs where time was truly a big factor, we always did hot loads with the off side engine turning and the copilot making damn sure that we didn't wander onto the wrong side of the aircraft when loading. That way, we were rolling as he pulled the door up. Saved a little time I suppose.

RMD

quote:

Originally posted by erj_pilot:
=I don’t even want to know what that looked like…

If you have a morbid curiosity, and a really strong stomach, there are pictures of the aftermath out there on the "net". It's what you probably expect, but still quite unbelievable. At least in that case it was quick, pretty much instantaneous. I can only hope for the same for this woman since it was a smaller engine at presumably idle power.

Speaking of morbid, someone has to clean that up, right? Or can they just detach the engine and put the whole thing in the crusher?

I spent a lot of time on both the SAC alert Christmas Tree and the Priority B ramp. I used to warm my hands in the APU exhaust! Possibly the most dangerous space I ever existed in. Saw troops blown off their feet a number of times and a maintenance van blown over. Aircraft moving, vehicles moving constantly and for more fun, toss in a couple of Oshkosh trucks with 40ft taxiway plow blades working the ramp. My head was on a swivel every minute. No place for complacency!
Damn, I miss the smell of JP-4!

The idiot driving this tug just about decapitated my wife.

quote:

Originally posted by Joe123:
Yes I saw this, a accident caused by taking shortcuts. The ground worker crossed in front of the running engine to go to the luggage compartment on the other side of the aircraft, inside of the danger zone. The engine was left running to provide power for the aircraft as the APU was not operational. It is common for the APU to need repair, it is not required to keep operating the aircraft. It is normally used on the ground only to provide the aircraft power. Even at idle these engines pull in a lot of air, The worker took a short cut and it cost her life. She was supposed to walk around the nose of the aircraft and then in front of the right engine that was not running.

When you say 'I saw this' you didn't literally see it, did you? Your post seems to have a lot more detail than anything I've been able to find by searching online. I'm definitely NOT looking for ANY before during or after pics/video, but if you've got a link w/ some better details on what occurred here and how it happened, please post it. If you have first hand knowledge of this incident, my condolences...

quote:

Originally posted by Georgeair:
Speaking of morbid, someone has to clean that up, right? Or can they just detach the engine and put the whole thing in the crusher?

No, the engine is disassembled and the remains removed.

quote:

Originally posted by TomV:
The idiot driving this tug just about decapitated my wife.

Man, what? Make sense.