PDT Employee Killed in MGM

From what I understand the APU was deferred and they were waiting on a GPU.

Honestly, rampers shouldn't touch any plane besides the GPU and nose chalks till the engines are shut down.

I have had rampers open my aft cargo before I shut down the left engine on the CRJ. Not smart.
 
The ramp is a dangerous place and a hard job. Especially with recent staffing woes.

Minuteman said:
I'm curious if your opinion of the policy changes any with the kind of equipment. I.e., do tail mounted engines make any difference to safety?
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For sure. And props are most dangerous. Almost walked into a Brasilia prop once during a GPU start after push. No Bueno, easy to do. Missed by a few inches. With CRJs, it always felt much less dangerous than with wing mounted engines as it was much harder to kill yourself or get equipment ingested. Not much suction at all going by the aft pit under the engine as it spools down, as you are under it and not in front of it. Crab walking down a 737 belly to pull the airstart hose always felt less than ideal.

Tail mounted planes are also generally lower to the ground and more easily accessible, further reducing the risks of falling off a loader, bags falling on you, ect. But don't get a CRJ static wick to the eye.
 
We rolled into the gate one day and had no APU so we kept the right engine running (deplaning and baggage on the left) and low and behold we had a couple of our POI’s standing on the ramp about to check us and they noticed a space cadet ramper start heading for the lav dump right under the engine that was running. We see them take off running and stop her before she did it. After that they gave her a pretty good rear chewing for not paying attention to the engine running. At idle, it probably wouldn’t have sucked her up in the engine but all the face equipment and ear protection would have been gone. It amazes me at how clueless a lot of rampers and ground personnel are sometimes when the stories are plentiful of major injuries and death are out there.


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About a year ago I had a plane with a deferred APU. Pull in to the gate, the jetbridge operator won’t approach the aircraft with the engine running. You can see where this is going. The poor FO is begging in the ops radio to explain this situation, but nobody answers. I end up calling my dispatcher on my phone desperate for help. In all, we sat there for THE MOST UNCOMFORTABLE 40 minutes freaking out any time anybody in a green vest started walking toward the airplane. Eventually someone got the message and brought a GPU. Super stressful.

At the end of the day nobody got hurt, and the ERC told me that the jetbridge operator would receive extra training. So the system worked. kind of. I think I got a good number of the gray hairs I wear from that night. Oh yeah, it was at night.
 
Maurus said:
The worst part is the constant need to improve performance metrics. I can't imagine the pushing ramp crews get. Pilot pushing resulted in deaths. Same can happen on the ramp.
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I mean always told them it's not worth it. But I lied and never told the company I said that.

"Liability hot potato" is the game. Something happens, you don't want your guys in trouble, so you huck the potato around until everything is so convoluted that it cools down and no one cares anymore. I'm good enough at that game that both in OAK and SMF I assured my people they will never have to explain a delay taken for safety/manpower. Less people means flights will be late, not 2 20-year-old kids will do the work of 5 people.

I stand behind my methods but nothing gets you more flowers than being a sociopathic kool-aid drinker.
 
ChasenSFO said:
I mean always told them it's not worth it. But I lied and never told the company I said that.

"Liability hot potato" is the game. Something happens, you don't want your guys in trouble, so you huck the potato around until everything is so convoluted that it cools down and no one cares anymore. I'm good enough at that game that both in OAK and SMF I assured my people they will never have to explain a delay taken for safety/manpower. Less people means flights will be late, not 2 20-year-old kids will do the work of 5 people.

I stand behind my methods but nothing gets you more flowers than being a sociopathic kool-aid drinker.
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Hot damn man, you're all grown's up now! I can start opening your text messages on office days again! :)

Just messing with you, thank you for being a leader to your people.
 
JordanD said:
I worked the ramp for PDT for 4 years. Still have yet to ever lay a finger on or step foot on a PDT plane.
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PDT essentially took over all the ground handling from Mesa when they got out of the ground ops game.


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ChasenSFO said:
I mean always told them it's not worth it. But I lied and never told the company I said that.

"Liability hot potato" is the game. Something happens, you don't want your guys in trouble, so you huck the potato around until everything is so convoluted that it cools down and no one cares anymore. I'm good enough at that game that both in OAK and SMF I assured my people they will never have to explain a delay taken for safety/manpower. Less people means flights will be late, not 2 20-year-old kids will do the work of 5 people.

I stand behind my methods but nothing gets you more flowers than being a sociopathic kool-aid drinker.
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I look back on the brief stint I did on the ramp in my early 20s and it kind of scares me how much I was willing to do the work of 5 people just to get a flight out on time. 20 years later I’d say the flight goes when it goes.


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roundout said:
About a year ago I had a plane with a deferred APU. Pull in to the gate, the jetbridge operator won’t approach the aircraft with the engine running. You can see where this is going. The poor FO is begging in the ops radio to explain this situation, but nobody answers. I end up calling my dispatcher on my phone desperate for help. In all, we sat there for THE MOST UNCOMFORTABLE 40 minutes freaking out any time anybody in a green vest started walking toward the airplane. Eventually someone got the message and brought a GPU. Super stressful.

At the end of the day nobody got hurt, and the ERC told me that the jetbridge operator would receive extra training. So the system worked. kind of. I think I got a good number of the gray hairs I wear from that night. Oh yeah, it was at night.
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Not sure what you are flying, but why not just shut it down on battery, let them hook up the bridge to let the paxs off? You’ll take a delay either way but one is a lot safer.


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T/O w/FSII said:
Not sure what you are flying, but why not just shut it down on battery, let them hook up the bridge to let the paxs off? You’ll take a delay either way but one is a lot safer.


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A lot of jet bridges can't be moved with the power cord hooked up. And you can't shut down on battery without the cabin going dark.
 
ASpilot2be said:
A lot of jet bridges can't be moved with the power cord hooked up. And you can't shut down on battery without the cabin going dark.
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I think he was asking why can't the engines be shut down and the airplane just sit on batteries until the GPU is hooked up. That would be fine if you didn't have 200 people in the cabin freaking out because the lights/air conditioning/heating just quit at the exact moment they're all trying to get off the airplane. I hate flying on airlines anymore. It's just not fun.
 
T/O w/FSII said:
Not sure what you are flying, but why not just shut it down on battery, let them hook up the bridge to let the paxs off? You’ll take a delay either way but one is a lot safer.


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we’d lose all the cabin lights. plunging 186 or thereabouts people in to darkness even for “just a second while they hook up the GPU” is too risky. We get a lot of first time and infrequent travelers and a lot of people who may not understand a PA made in my pidgin Texan English trying to explain what’s about to happen. The risk of causing panic inside the plane is just too great to do this.

One time on an ATR we had a prop spinning in feather waiting for a Gpu to get hooked up and a ramp guy was walking toward the prop with PCA. I was able to get his attention by using the external horn and he stopped. In retrospect, that was the wrong choice, I should have just shut the motor down (with wasn’t an FO thing at that airline, but in a situation like that who cares?) but I hesitated because I knew we weren’t authorized to have pax on board without power. I think I had about 4 months at the airlines at that point.

sometimes you’re forced in to operating in the gray even if you’ve done things right and done nothing to put yourself in that position.
 
T/O w/FSII said:
Not sure what you are flying, but why not just shut it down on battery, let them hook up the bridge to let the paxs off? You’ll take a delay either way but one is a lot safer.


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At least for the 175, this would not work. Most of the passenger care and feeding apparatus depends on having AC power. That plane, at least, does not provide AC power to the systems from the battery, because it would be too much load. So if you do that, all the recirc fans go off, the main cabin lights go off, and the emergency lights come on. Not exactly great, from a customer point of view.

I've had similar experiences. It's the job of the jet bridge operator to put the jet bridge on the plane. i'm not going to go cold and dark on the passengers to address that particular training issue. Now if there's an actual safety issue on the ramp, like a fuel spill at the gate next-door or something, that is a different issue.
 
roundout said:
we’d lose all the cabin lights. plunging 186 or thereabouts people in to darkness even for “just a second while they hook up the GPU” is too risky. We get a lot of first time and infrequent travelers and a lot of people who may not understand a PA made in my pidgin Texan English trying to explain what’s about to happen. The risk of causing panic inside the plane is just too great to do this.

One time on an ATR we had a prop spinning in feather waiting for a Gpu to get hooked up and a ramp guy was walking toward the prop with PCA. I was able to get his attention by using the external horn and he stopped. In retrospect, that was the wrong choice, I should have just shut the motor down (with wasn’t an FO thing at that airline, but in a situation like that who cares?) but I hesitated because I knew we weren’t authorized to have pax on board without power. I think I had about 4 months at the airlines at that point.

sometimes you’re forced in to operating in the gray even if you’ve done things right and done nothing to put yourself in that position.
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I was today years old when I learned that some planes have horns.
 
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