Originally Posted by
PhilMcCrackin
Short taxi? Also, aren’t ground crew trained not to approach the aircraft with the beacon on when pulling into the gate? I think you’re reaching for ideas to blame the flight crew.
Yes, if the beacon was on (I'm assuming it was) then this is a colossal failure of fundamental safety on the part of the ramp. Remotely possible that the lower beacon failed or the CA reverted to muscle memory and turned the beacon off. We'll know soon enough.
There are things we can do to minimize risk, good practice to slow-roll a short taxi-in to avoid having to finish cooling down while parked at the gate. Worst case stop short of the parked position and then pull in after cooldown.
With APU inop, you just have to keep one of them running though so that's where the adherence to procedure becomes absolutely vital... it's not an uncommon occurrence. Might be worth advising ops which engine will remain up, but they still should just stay the eff away except for the guy who has to plug in the power and maybe nose chocks.
I vaguely recall shutting down #1 on a past airplane because the GP receptacle was on the left side. Might have been a prop job.