NTSB prelim is out. It reads like half the ground crew is mindlessly performing their tasks with zero awareness and/or regard of big wide spinning death X 2. By my count there were at least 4 instances of ground crew being verbally reminded to keep their distance. I’m not sure what to make of that, quite honestly.

One would think that footage of the sailor on an aircraft carrier deck being sucked into a jet intake would be standard viewing for any ground crew. Very hard to forget seeing something like that.

My daddy told me not to stick my fingers in the garbage disposal.

It's tough to understand how anyone would put themselves in the position this ramp agent did. How distracted or impaired would someone need to be to make an error of this magnitude?

I'm curious how many days this aircraft was operating with the APU deferred? We've all seen airlines use the MEL "can be inoperative up to XX days" as a goal, rather than a short-term dispatch tool. While it may not have made a difference in this case, I think there should be a hard look at changing the APU deferral category from C to B. This would allow airlines to maintain schedule integrity when an APU breaks, but limit the risk to ground personnel.

We've seen some ramp agents are either poorly selected for hiring, poorly trained, or can't remember their training when it matters. Why not cut down the potential exposure to this hazard?

No one in this industry should leave their family in the morning, and never come home from work. RIP Courtney.

If you haven't yet, please consider making a donation to Courtney's family, as a show of solidarity with our industry brothers and sisters who perform so many essential tasks that allow us to serve our passengers. Unlike us, none of them are ever thanked by our passengers.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/courtney-...term=undefined

I don't disagree but I'm not sure that the FAA's mandate extends quite as far as changing operating procedures because a somebody on the ground might walk into an operating engine. Maybe.

Their calculus on that would be stats related to the risks of going single-generator in the event of an engine failure. Probably not ramp safety. Or pax safety on a hot day.


The go-fund me is over $100K, so that's good. I'm guessing pilots helped with that.

Workplace accident. Wouldn't' recovery be limited to Workers Compensation?

I think the persons schedule and how much overtime was worked and the level of fatigue to be more important then changing an APU category.

Depends. On circumstances and state. If I had to guess somebody will find a way for the heirs to proceed with a lawsuit in this case... it's worth jumping through hoops to get in front of a jury (or even a judge) due to the horrific nature of the accident.

Example: Third party claim against AA, Embraer, MGM airport, etc

Pretty sure negligence removes that limitation.
Knowing how the ramp operates at AAG regionals, it won't take much to find plenty of examples of it.

Apparently Piedmont was fined $15k for the incident:

https://nypost.com/2023/06/16/airlin...-plane-engine/

That was from OHSA. $15k was the max, it's just bureaucratic admin.