PDT Employee Killed in MGM

[Murdoughnut]

Looks like there is a cultural problem with the ground crew.
Lack of procedures, lack of discipline.

I've seen veteran crews pressure rookies into making mistakes for fun, or forcing them to act without thinking, making a serious mistake, just for a few laughs.

Rampers get pulled off lunch or ripped away from the punch clock to get one more airplane. Now their head is not with the job but thinking about food or home. Then the rush happens and they start trying to shave off a few seconds here and there.

Ramp habits need to be trained to instinct. You ALWAYS walk a perimeter around the intake, running or not. With props, you ALWAYS walk around the arc, running or not. When the panic, or rush hits, you do what you always do, what you are trained to do, and what you practice. You suddenly have a late bag that needs to go into cargo, you will instinctively take the safest path.

That ramp sounds like a circus. The training is probably poor and they are likely hiring anyone to fill the position because they absolutely REFUSE to raise the wages.

The news will say the dead ramper was careless.
Reality says that the entire system from hiring to training to the basic culture is at fault.

I can't help but wonder how much of that is tied to turnover. What's the average time on the job for a regional ramper - a few months?

 

[JEP]

And telephones where you can crank call your wife from the middle of the ocean. But who answers an unfamiliar caller ID in 2023?

if you're not in my contacts it'll roll to VM. I have the phone set to not answer any unknown number. if its important theyll leave a VM. if they don't then I didnt need to talk to them anyways.

 

[Boris Badenov]

I worked on the ramp 25 years ago, and I doubt much has changed. There was a lot of perfunctory "training" which would now be a powerpoint, but I think then was like an overhead projection. The effect is probably about the same. Young people who haven't spent much time around dangerous machines don't pay a whole lot of attention to it, and, more importantly, they're aren't *made* to. Whole lot of rubber-stamping.

In retrospect, I'm astonished that the worst thing I witnessed was some dude driving the tail-stand for a 74 smack in to the wing of a DC-8.

 

[roundout]

Sounds like everything was done right and still this happened.

Everything was planned right.

At airlines, we brief everything. We brief until the other person isn’t listening any longer. Both people know that most of it is just for the CVR. You can brief something specific, the other person will say they understand, then they go and do something different anyway. Super frustrating.

This sounds like the same thing. Someone, presumably a manager or a lead,talked about what needed to be done, how to do it, and what not to do. But it sounds like 2 of the ground crew didn’t receive the message that was being delivered.

safety is more than just blabbing a bunch of savvy-sounding buzzwords in meetings. That’s for tech start ups. Out on the line, this stuff actually matters.

 

[Roger Roger]

It’s just a common meat brain problem. We’ve all done something similar, in the cockpit or out, where we briefed or planned something abnormal and then defaulted back to standard ops.

 

[Boris Badenov]

It’s just a common meat brain problem. We’ve all done something similar, in the cockpit or out, where we briefed or planned something abnormal and then defaulted back to standard ops.

Ask me about the CQ12 where the C/A and I both briefed *multiple times* the MEL which required that the gear stay down for two minutes after rotation. With the Check Airman foot-stomping *multiple times*. And then..."positive rate!" "Gear up!"

Ok, that was Saturday.

 

[roundout]

Ask me about the CQ12 where the C/A and I both briefed *multiple times* the MEL which required that the gear stay down for two minutes after rotation. With the Check Airman foot-stomping *multiple times*. And then..."positive rate!" "Gear up!"

Ok, that was Saturday.

 

[DropTank]

I can't help but wonder how much of that is tied to turnover. What's the average time on the job for a regional ramper - a few months?

Honestly don't know.
But that really is management's problem.
Have higher turnover?
Pay them more to retain the experience or increase training and supervision by 4 fold.

Or pay the next of kin of a ground up ramp worker (or one of 1000 other ways to die on the ramp)

 

[Boris Badenov]

View attachment 69285

Learning occurred.

 

[Wardogg]

Learning occurred.

When I was a young, up and coming aircrewman, one of the first safety videos in one of the first safety classes about flightline safety I ever saw was this one. Talk about learning occurring.

Left a good enough impression on me as a young 18 year old I haven't been sucked into an intake yet.

Maybe if we showed current rampers video of the most current incident that may solve the current training/briefing problem.

 

[Boris Badenov]

Talk about learning occurring.

They show this one to us at every CQ I've had the misfortune to participate in, and rightfully so. Stuff of nightmares.

 

[SlumTodd_Millionaire]

Honestly don't know.
But that really is management's problem.
Have higher turnover?
Pay them more to retain the experience or increase training and supervision by 4 fold.

Or pay the next of kin of a ground up ramp worker (or one of 1000 other ways to die on the ramp)

Problem is, a ground up ramp worker is very rare, and the cost of any legal settlement amortized out over the length of time between deaths is a hell of a lot lower than paying for retention.

 

[DropTank]

Problem is, a ground up ramp worker is very rare, and the cost of any legal settlement amortized out over the length of time between deaths is a hell of a lot lower than paying for retention.

For every news incident you see, there are 10 other deaths and 100 serious injuries.
So many ways to lose fingers, break bones, and a lot of nasty things to deal with.

 

[nibake]

There is a disconnect between the "briefing" and the fact that multiple rampers were out and about. It seems like the only one who had SA was the one at the nose wheel. That really makes you wonder about the briefing that occurred. If two or three people forget what was briefed, that's different than just one.

 

[///AMG]

With props, you ALWAYS walk around the arc, running or not.

Not really relevant to this particular mishap, but my old man, from a young age being around planes (his, others), taught me to never walk through a prop arc, no matter what. It seemed ridiculous and old fashioned to me at the time, but it has since served me well in my flying career. Kinda like "don't point it at anything you don't intend to kill"

 

[poser765]

There is a disconnect between the "briefing" and the fact that multiple rampers were out and about. It seems like the only one who had SA was the one at the nose wheel. That really makes you wonder about the briefing that occurred. If two or three people forget what was briefed, that's different than just one.

You’re probably on to something, but man is primacy one insidious bastard.

 

[///AMG]

I'll also say that both QX ERJs I flew on this week had inop APUs (they did huffer starts, which was mildly entertaining). Maybe they were the same airplane. I was a little afraid to look out the window as we parked both times. Probably not rationally. I'm sure this MEL is not uncommon.

 

[Oxman]

Alabama mom of 3 ‘violently’ sucked into plane engine was warned to stay back: NTSB

Courtney Edwards, 34, a mom-of-three working for Piedmont Airlines, was sucked into a jet engine at an Alabama airport after apparently ignoring repeated warnings to stay away from the back of the …

nypost.com

An Alabama airport worker who was sucked into a plane engine was pulled in so violently that it shook the entire aircraft, killing her after she had been repeatedly warned to keep her distance, federal investigators found.

Mom of three Courtney Edwards, 34, has been identified as the ground handling agent who was killed in the accident at Montgomery Regional Airport on New Year’s Eve.

She had been working as a ground handling agent for Piedmont Airlines, a subsidiary of American Airlines, according to a preliminary report from the National Transportation Safety Board released on Monday.

The report revealed that prior to her death, a co-worker saw Edwards nearly knocked over by the exhaust from a jet and tried to warn her to keep her distance until the engines were shut down.

Another ground worker on the other side of the Embraer E175 jet had backed away after a pilot leaned out the window and said the engines were still running.


But moments later, Edwards walked in front of one of the engines of the plane carrying an orange safety cone and was “pulled off her feet and into the operating engine,” according to the report.

A co-pilot reported that the “airplane shook violently followed by the immediate automatic shutdown.”

The flight from Dallas with 59 passengers and four crew members on board was operated by Envoy Air, an affiliate of American Airlines.

An auxiliary power unit used to power the plane without using the engines was not working, according to the safety board, and pilots decided to leave both engines running for a two-minute engine cool-down period while they waited for the plane to be connected to ground power.

The NTSB said the ground crew held a safety meeting 10 minutes before the flight’s arrival, followed by a second safety “huddle” held immediately before the Embraer jet reached the gate, “to reiterate that the engines would remain running” and the plane shouldn’t be approached until the engines were shut down and the pilots turned off the beacon light.

Throughout the incident, rotating beacons on the plane appeared to be illuminated, warning that engines were still running, investigators said.

Video surveillance showed Edwards walking along the edge of the plane’s left wing and in front of the first engine.

A co-worker yelled and waved Edwards off. She began to move away from the plane, but then he heard a “bang,” and the engine shut down, according to the preliminary report.

The board also noted that an American Eagle manual revised in July warns workers never to come within 15 feet of the front of an engine — an area called the “ingestion zone” — until the engine’s blades stop spinning.

The board did not state a probable cause for the fatal incident — that step usually follows an investigation that can take a year or longer.

According to the description of a GoFundMe campaign that was launched to help Edwards’ family, the woman is survived by her mother and three young children. The fundraiser so far has drawn more than $102,000 in donations.

 

[CoffeeIcePapers]

I had a new ramper asking me where to put the AC hose holder and where to put the gate checked bags when I was doing the walk around. He had no clue I was a pilot. The guy just had zero clue what was going on with no manager to be seen. The poor kid was on his own. I’m surprised this doesn’t happen more often.

 

[derg]

Not really relevant to this particular mishap, but my old man, from a young age being around planes (his, others), taught me to never walk through a prop arc, no matter what. It seemed ridiculous and old fashioned to me at the time, but it has since served me well in my flying career. Kinda like "don't point it at anything you don't intend to kill"

The number of people on social media posing in the arc of props is befuddling.