What they really need to do is train their ramp crews on how dangerous a jet engine is, even when on idle. The 175 engines burn 500lbs/hr each on idle, it takes a lot of air to keep it cool and running. I don't think rampers really appreciate them enough, based on how often they jump in front of them when still running.

This is a top down issue. Lack of training, investment and oversight of rampers, and the culture of fear where a one minute delay can get you terminated. But I can guarantee management will find ways to avoid any responsibility, and they'll fire a few front line people to show they have done something about it. Yet nothing gets fixed.

Sure a lot of armchair quarterbacks in here.....making a lot of assumptions with zero details on how this actually happened. Show this poor ramper some dignity and shut this thread down.

I see it more as people discussing a tragic accident trying to see how it happened to help prevent it from happening again by identifying pitfalls in how we do things and improving processes and procedures and such.

Sounds like you need to go back and re-read some things.

WN already does this entire process

Don't they also train their rampers and pay them a livable wage?

Serious questions about turbofans.... once fuel is cutoff, how soon is it safe to be in front of it? Obviously it is still spinning for a couple of minutes after cutoff and N1 decreases almost instantly, but at what point is there no longer a danger of getting sucked in after fuel cutoff?

Right after cutoff you’ll be fine, just don’t walk in front of it pre cutoff for obvious reasons

Heard of a recent Huffer hose ingestion/partial ingestion....I heard the aircraft was dispatched and the flight deck was not informed.

Training is not bad....it's the lack of oversight ....people just watching their phones and hitting the enter button and guessing on the questions which are regularly dumbed down so people can pass. But when you pay people 10.00 /hr, sups at 13.50...you kinda get what ya pay for

Pretty much instantly. The pressure ratio drops to zero almost immediately, that's the woosh-sound you hear when a turbofan engine is shut down.

People rather hide their mistakes than report them because there is no just culture, you'll just get fired.

AA WO ramp operations are atrocious, this accident could have happened at any time, at any station. But it is the fault of management, not the guys doing the work who are underpaid, underappreciated and undertrained. In this case, they will just fire the crew chief but nothing will be fixed. I filed 2 ASAPs for ramp behavior that was suicidal, and the amount of reports and phone calls I had, I long ago lost track of them. CPO answer always was that there's nothing they can do.
Maybe they start caring now that someone died.

Isn't that the case though with most rules and regulations in DOT industry? Something about all the FAR's written in blood? Or enough people have to die for a 4 way stop to become a red light intersection. Very sad.

Like 2 centuries ago, railroad steam engine boilers were required to have pressure relief valves on them. Too many over pressure events, boilers blew up and killed people.

Most parts of the globe, ground personnel won't approach the aircraft if the beacon is on. Pretty much anywhere on the planet, in any type of aircraft, including most third and fourth world smoke holes.

It's disingenuous to suggest a ramper with only five days might not know better. The use of the beacon to warn of aircraft operation has been in effect since the advent of turbine engines. This is not a new concept. Fast hands kill; rushing to do anything in aviation is usually a bad choice, with a potential fatal outcome; this case no different. The first thing anyone on the ramp should be taught, from hour .01 of their new career, is basic ramp safety.

That said, I've had personnel walk past engines while running, taxi behind me when powering up, simply walk away when being marshalled into a gate, frequently looking the other way and not at me during an arrival to the gate, and I've had to sit with an engine running for an hour (+) before ground power showed up when no APU was available. I've had ground crew disconnect external power before I decoupled it, resulting in a large arc and bang when they pulled the plug.

A friend, who flew hercs at the time, had a station manager who made a habit of opening the crew entrance door before the aircraft was shut down, and after multiple warnings, one day the crew left half an inch or so of pressure, and the door flattened him when he opened...never made that mistake again. I've seen ramp personnel start fueling, tie off the deadman switch, and walk away. Start loading aircraft without crew coordination resulting in nearly dropping the airplane on its tail. Pull chocks without authorization. Open doors with engines running.

The potential is always for unfortunate, but predictable results. This case, no different.

The excuse or reason for ignoring the beacon really doesn't matter, because the result is the same. It doesn't matter if someone was trying to get baggage quickly, or didn't know the APU was inoperative, or thought the left vs. right engine was shut down, or was trying to look good for the boss; the result is the same here, and the commonality to all is the beacon. It's there for a reason. As noted above, the possibility that the beacon was inoperative or turned off exists. Not every location jacks in and greets the crew on the intercom, and it's possible the ICS was broken, etc. Perhaps local tribal convention is to listen for the engines and then rush in, but if that's a practice despite the beacon, it's a damn foolish one. There are a lot of parts of the world where I did't get the beacon right away and everybody stood back and refused to approach, until that beacon went off...it's a worldwide convention.. Certainly there are stations that don't answer the radio, don't communicate, and even with an in-range call, still seem to be completely unaware a flight is coming, start running when "surprised" by the arrival. We've all seen it. I once had some dingbat wearing a hard-hat with a big flashing beacon on top at a government facility meet me at the ramp entrance, then run backward in a skip (try to do that, just try), while waving wants, for three quarters of a mile, until we arrived at the parking spot...with big radials turning everywhere. Once had a guy try to walk through the prop from the rear, between the fuselage and propeller of a large radial, to inform me about my aircraft type...and he had the wrong type. Nearly got him. All kinds of stupid pet tricks...but the bottom line is we have a beacon; the practice has been in use for a very long time now, and it's universal. There is literally no excuse for not waiting until the airplane is shut down,, regardless of pressure to turn airplanes, local tradition, etc. Bad habits kill.

It's just frustrating that people have been warning them about this for years, and they have done nothing except lip service.

This accident was entirely preventable, they just refused to do something about it.

That's kind of what I thought, suction drops exponentially as soon as fuel is cutoff, but yeah, obviously I've never tested it.

We had jet bridge canopy arm tear the MCD seal....agent new it....FA new it.....dispatched.....could not pressurize.....returned to airport to be ferried out at low altitude 2 days later.

Last two years 4 aircraft dispatched after deice, with significant contamination
Etc etc....nobody lost their jobs for any of that.....but get caught leaving on the clock.....you can resign

I reported it all....to management, to corporate, to the carrier, to the FAA
Squat done because they we're given heads up and would fabricate records
It's disgusting.....as pilots....if you have an issue find the sup and or station manager and chew them outThem run thru the channels...let's make the world a safer place to work

Envoy started an investigation against a pilot who reported something not legit. Any safety hazard reported also exposes yourself to scrutiny. So people just don't do them. Again, lack of just culture.

Wow......and that why people die

I wouldn't say it's disingenuous to say a ramper wouldn't know that the beacon was associated with the engines running after 5 days. I say that because I was one of those rampers. I showed up because somebody told me that if I could pass a drug test, I could get free flights if I threw bags a few hours a week. I was told to sit in front of a computer for 8 hours and click through LMS courses until I finished them. We didn't have training. I didn't know what a beacon was. To reiterate, as a pilot, it's obvious to me now. But as a ramper, how was a ramper supposed to know if nobody trained them?

That's what I keep saying, and as someone who was reading these reports, this was an entirely preventable accident.

I hope someone sues the sh(t out of them. They deserve it.

Again, ramp personnel SHOULD NOT be allowed on a ramp with anything more than paper airplanes if they do not know the meaning of a beacon. Period. Full stop. End of story.

There is NO excuse, no rationale, no explanation, no story, no fabel, no myth, no anecdote, no valid reason for putting someone on the operational side of a flight line who does not know the most basic and fundamental elements of safety around the aircraft on that flight line. None.

Anyone who does otherwise should be held criminally liable, and most certainly civilly liable for that death and any resulting injuries, or potential injuries or deaths.

When someone gets sucked through a turbine engine, the reasons really don't matter any more. The excuses pale. The anecdotes dry up and blow away, because they don't bring anybody back and they don't prevent another mishap from occurring.

Again, this isn't a little local tribal knowledge, and it's not a new thing. it's 70+ years old, and it's global. Worldwide.

This incident is one hundred percent preventable, and it's not simply one weak link. It can't be fixed retroactively, but it does not need to happen EVER AGAIN.

Yes. The fan slows to a negligible speed within moments. The fan is the danger... a lot of air volume at a fairly low diff pressure will apply a lot of force to a surface area of a a few square feet.

If a person's torso is approx 1'x3', that's 432 square inches... a one psi diff pressure will apply 432 lbs of force.

The N2 spool doesn't move much air volume in a high-bypass turbofan.

Just as an anecdote on how poorly these rampers are trained. A ramper once asked me, underneath the tailcone, if the APU was running.
I said the fact that you can talk to me in a normal voice means it's not.

They have no clue. But it's not their fault, it's the lack of training. And thats 100% on management.

Again - this accident could have been prevented, management just decided it's worth the occasional accident/ loss of human life to save millions annually on ramp costs.

I also feel for the flight crew. This is up there on things you don't want to experience during your career.

Where's Lee Iacocca when you need him.

This flight crew will feel some level of responsibility even if there is none. They will question what could they have done differently. The “if only I” scenarios. Get them the support they need. It’s tragic.

Mother of three. Fundraising link:

https://www.gofundme.com/f/courtney-edwards?utm_campaign=p_cp+share-sheet&utm_content=undefined&utm_medium=copy_link_a ll&utm_source=customer&utm_term=undefined&link_id= 18&can_id=f215e37ed210da8ff9e126dbefcf71f9&email_r eferrer=email_1779321&email_subject=cwa-airline-agents-tragic-death-on-the-job-and-other-news

Been thinking about this tragedy for a while and what to say. There is no doubt in my mind that Piedmont and to a larger extent, AA, have blood on their hands. This is the result of poor training, lack of oversight, and **** poor pay and working conditions. All the tough talk about D:0 or whatever the fancy metric they're focused on this month promotes a rushed environment prone to errors. The terrible pay results in high turnover and a management team that's largely inexperienced with little mentoring ability. Doesn't help that all the airlines used that sweet bailout money to throw early retirement at the old timers who have been around the block and see what happens when sh*t hits the fan. This is a major advantage that young pilots have when coming up. But again, you need to pay a lot to the older guys to stick around. If you pay $12/hr. to someone to work outside in all weather conditions, you shouldn’t expect them to care much about the operation.

I have been to this station many times, along with many others in AA's regional system, and to be honest, it is a miracle this doesn't happen more often. You always felt that "pressure" in the air to keep the plane moving, keep the bags loading, get the new crew on, etc. For those who did this type of flying, you know what I’m talking about. And all stations are the same, just with different faces.

I don't only blame that ground handling side either. The CPO's at the AA regionals have blood on their hands too. All those emails to captains asking why this such flight was 2 minutes late closing the door further promotes the rushing culture to the one person who has the ability to stop everything when things aren't right. Making captains have this worry in back of their head is, in my view, a disgrace. But just another example of **** poor mentoring and ability to lead from above. Same with Middle Management in other departments that all get their marching orders from above and push it down to station management.

I have seen what a toxic person or attitude can do to a smaller business. It is a cancer that you cannot let spread. When it is at a faceless corporation like AA/Piedmont where ALL higher ups push it downward, the spread is unstoppable, and it leads to a tragedy like this. In my experience, hiring and retaining solid talent to work is very hard. Talk is cheap. If you treat your people like family and treat them like a PROFFESIONAL, you will get a higher caliber individual who takes pride in their work and look out for each other like brothers. You'll retain management who want to mentor young workers and to make sure something like this would never happen, but a global airline just does not operate the same way because of greed.

I am sure the investigators will do their job and get a better idea of what happened. Just a terrible tragedy that was 100% preventable.

I confirmed with Courtney's union that this is legit. Donation made.

All of this +++.

As someone who has processed these reports, read and filed the ASAPs, and argued with CPO about all this, this is so incredibly frustrating.

My exact words a few years ago at CPO, "does someone have to die" and CPO responded "oh who cares". Not even kidding. All about the T0 time, who cares about anything else.

I hope someone sues the sh*t out of them.

This is EXACTLY 100% what goes on, every single day. Couldn't have said it any better.

Oh, I hope they do too. Hopefully those moves are already being made. Can only imagine how this would go in front of a jury when all the finer details of the culture and toxicity are put out there. Doubt the MAAinline would let it go that far.

Like you, I find it so frustrating and senseless. I get angry when rereading my post and thinking of it. Just terrible thinking of her children and my heart goes out to them.

I had only just set the brake on the 321 on Tuesday night - only days after this horrible accident happened - when we got the forward cargo door open ECAM. What in the actual F?! I quickly shut them both down and just shook my head. Somebody literally just got sucked into a smaller jet engine only days prior, but here we are, back to walking directly in front of a jet engine with an 8 foot wide inlet idling away.

We were absolutely dumbfounded. Somehow one would think that EVERY ramper at AA and its regional affiliates would be VERY aware of what just happened and would be really, really wary of that giant vacuum cleaner with blades spinning out there.

I haven't had it happen in like 6 months, but every time that door is opened before I shut down you bet I'm having a stern word with the agents

The fact that anyone who's flown in the AA system has these stories should show how bad things really are.

Video-NTSB Preliminary Report
 

https://youtu.be/Fya2ScTMrFc

Good video going over the NTSB preliminary report. APU on MEL. F/O opened his window to shout at someone getting too close to #2. The accident victim walked along the left wing until being sucked into #1. And they knew the jet was coming in with no APU. They did a safety briefing ten minutes before the accident.

Upper beacon was visible in the video. So the CA didn't screw that up. Lower beacon not visible but I'm certain it has been tested.

The "safety briefing" 10 minutes before, and the huddle prior, are just CYA. Their briefings are a joke and we've all seen the "huddle" where they show up, with their earpods on jamming to their music, just so it looks like they do it.
The ramp guys are woefully undertrained and as we can all see from the excerpt from the manual (which they don't read), AAG is just trying to cover their butts. That's their modus operandi on these. "Oh, the manual did say you can't do that, it's on page 387, and you signed this form where you say you have read and understood it".

Just look how bad the ramp operation was. Cargo door was opened (by a different ramper) while Eng #2 was still running (almost everyone who has flown in the AA system has seen that), and the poor ramper walked along the leading edge straight to a running engine. This is a systemic issue, but they are trying to make it look like it's just a ramper who didn't do what she was told to do.

This is what happens when you penny pinch, hire rampers on minimum wage under regional contracts, and train them by a computer module for a few hours.

So you were there?

Yeah but still... the one *really* important thing that all the rampers need to know is: Don't get near the 30,000 hp, 6' diameter cuisinart until you're certain it's off and spooled down.

Pretty damning that they can't even get that right.

Just follow that rule not to approach the engine until you can see the individual fan blades turning. Simple.
I hope the NTSB does a through investigation. If it's poor training and/or a culture problem I hope they say so and put some heat on the company.