Mechanic Dies After Being Ingested By Jet Engine

Roger said:
Ugh. No good at all. I'm paranoid about that kind of stuff. As a very wise man once told me, "airplanes play for keeps".
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My least favorite evolution is a ground run with a mechanic anywhere near the engine. I huddle everyone up and brief the hand signals and take painstaking steps to ensure the wrench swinger's safety.

Propellers are hot until proven otherwise.
 
I'd be curious to know how many times this has happened as far as the airlines go. I would think it'd be pretty hard to walk into a prop, you can always hear them ear-plugs or not. I guess people just get too comfortable.
 
ChasenSFO said:
I'd be curious to know how many times this has happened as far as the airlines go. I would think it'd be pretty hard to walk into a prop, you can always hear them ear-plugs or not. I guess people just get too comfortable.
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With the Eagle incident I mentioned it was that it was an AA ramper who had come over to drop off some last minute bags, and being an AA ramper and not an Eagle one wasn't used to being around props at all. The engine was running, so the blades weren't *that* visible to someone who isn't USED to watching for props... It was an unfortunate accident.
 
If you haven't seen the CAL pictures, you don't want to. It's really, really, really horrible when you consider what happened when looking at the pictures.
 
jtrain609 said:
If you haven't seen the CAL pictures, you don't want to. It's really, really, really horrible when you consider what happened when looking at the pictures.
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Eh, they weren't that bad. I mean, they won't keep me from sleeping or anything. Might make me more careful around a running engine though, so I looked.
 
We should always be aware that the ramp is a inherently dangerous place to work. The first day I was on the ramp, I was terrified when a plane came in with the engines running. Now, unfortunately, that fear is gone. My biggest fear is having to do an airstart...

We have to walk through the edge lines of the ingestion zone, and I just dont feel good at all about that.
 
Spent 8 years working the ramp for a third party handler.

I've worked everything from DC-3's to 747's and everything in between.

While I've never seen anyone killed, I've seen many people come damn close, it's an incredibly dangerous place to work for one reason, you work around such dangerous machines day in and day out you become complacent to the danger.

Two of the eeriest things I've ever had to do working the ramp:

Pitch dark ramp, doing an air-start from an air-start cart under the belly of a 747 (Connection points are just behind the wings) while they fired up, we were not in direct communication with the pilot, only the rampie at the nose... pilots were very foreign... was not a good feeling... if you've never stood under the belly of a running 747 you know what I mean!

Marshalling a 737-500 who stopped turning because of ice, nose gear went 90 degrees to the tarmac sliding straight ahead towards me, at which point I slipped and fell... thank christ the crew had the heads to hit the reverse thrust... they got stopped about 50 feet from me while I scrambled up... needless to say it was scary as hell!

EDIT:

Had to add one more... de-icing a 727-200 in a blinding ice storm with an open bucket 40 foot cherry picker... which means in order to clean the vertical stab, the boom was 90 degrees straight up from the truck bowing along in the wind... the hot blast from the APU exhaust on the wing throwing the fluid back into your face as the truck starts skidding towards the airplane...
 
Bigey said:
We should always be aware that the ramp is a inherently dangerous place to work. The first day I was on the ramp, I was terrified when a plane came in with the engines running. Now, unfortunately, that fear is gone. My biggest fear is having to do an airstart...

We have to walk through the edge lines of the ingestion zone, and I just dont feel good at all about that.
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Airstarts on 73s aren't bad. Now getting to check out parts of the airplane, like the pc air connection or wheel wells with the engines running? Not so much.
 
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