Awful: Worker Ingested By Delta Jet Engine At San Antonio Airport

I’ve read this blog every day for a decade but the recent trend of covering murders, deaths, assaults and deadly accidents is really putting me off and bad for my mental health. I didn’t come here on a relaxed Sunday morning for this. I’m looking for travel ideas, and reviews not the worst in humanity!

Sounds like the company is trying to say it was a suicide without saying it was a suicide.

Those types of stories get most clicks though and clicks pay bills, so expect to see the same amount of articles like this, if not more.

Unfortunately, this is part of aviation. There are both inherent risks and human error involved.
There is no indication that this was suicide, and we probably would never know unless the worker left a message.
Also, if you mental health is negatively impacted by stories like this, you may want to self-filter what you choose to click on. It is news and needs to be covered.

Soft

Surely the bills are paid by CC referrals and by the Ford TA referrals.

Most definitely but you can never have too much money, right? 😉

When the story is about a death, I try to hold off judgement until we've got more information. Prayers for the deceased and the family.

Sadly, that does seem to be what is being said.

Clickbait aside, the story has a fundamental problem and misunderstanding of the operation of a jet engine. The amount of thrust produced (which is mentioned multiple times as a potential causation) has nothing to do with the sad chain of events. Thrust is the amount of air produced out of the end of engine, not at the intake. The ramp worker was not pushed or blown down by thrust (which does also happen) but ingested by the high flow of air at the intake (or front) of the engine.

More than 20 years ago, Northwest Airlines was still using reverse thrust on its DC-9's to push back from the gate. I used to like to hear the roar from the cabin. A Delta Air Lines pilot told me that company rules prohibit them from doing that.

“From our initial investigation, this incident was unrelated to Unifi’s operational processes, safety procedures and policies......"

I think the lawyers will resolve that issue...

C

Can we all allow for a bit of "Personal Responsibility", ever? My husband works for a government organization that is unionized and heavily regulated with hundreds of thousands of employees. They have extensive safety trainings and even have not just daily safety meetings, but SHIFT safety meetings (3 a day, sometimes more). They make every employee aware of any incident and how it could have been stopped from happening. He has worked there 27 years and it never ceases to amaze me: People lift the wrong way, People drive forklifts dangerously, People wear earbuds and listen to music/blogs/podcasts, People don't take breaks, People get distracted, People still are on their phones all day long (even when they aren't allowed on the work floor), People stackup bundles too high to get the job done faster, People don't inspect what they are about to handle, People are HUMANS and get distracted and don't follow what they are taught and the rules the company has set forth to keep them SAFE. Sometimes is it an "bad company" or "bad supervisors" fault? Yes. But let's not all jump on American Airlines or Delta (in this case) and ASSUME the employee was doing everything they were supposed to. Everyone always jumps to legal this and sue that and fine this. Have any of Y'all been around a service worker lately??? There is a new generation of distracted people who are plugged into their devices and could care less about the teams safety score or anything else but whatever they are focused on. Just be mindful of that too.

Really Nikojas? LOL. Have You read any other aviation travel blog? This is meant to tell us what's happening around the areas we spend the most time in: Airports and Hotels. I want to know what's happening to workers below my window and if I could die at a hotel. Get over Yourself.

They are saying this was a Suicide. Investigators before Lawyers and litigation. Not everything needs to be in court.

The companies are both saying now that this was Suicide. And I TOTALLY agree with You on both fronts: This is travel blog with all things related to it. And SELF FILTER if Your so "affected" by anything.

Since this is the second ingestion in six months, extra scrutiny should apply. OSHA fined Piedmont $15,000 for the Alabama death. Piedmont was claiming they had three safety meetings the day of the incident. That said I am reluctant to swallow the narrative from the ground contractor in this case until NTSB investigation is complete.

Lots of new inexperienced ramp folks who are probably rushing to get the aircraft parked and serviced for a quick turn and on time departure. Ed Bastian loves to brag Delta is fully staffed, will not cancel fights, get you to your destination on time without a hitch. In order to do this they put big demands on these contract workers who are on the ramp which contributes to unnecessary deaths like this. Shame on Delta and the others like American (Envoy) where this has occured.

Your comment is so helpful Thank you.

take a deep breath in accusing anyone before you know the facts - which you don't.
Nobody has established that anything was rushed here or that the victim was not properly trained.
There is the implication that this might not have been an accident. If so, all of the finger pointing don't change the deep flaws in human beings which are not excluded from the workplace.
Because we don't and won't know, please don't use a very sad death to jump on a hobby horse which might or might not have had anything to do with this incident.

Fake Tim Dunn?
I'd hope the real chatGPTim would take a deep breath before telling facts, such as financials from the earnings call how profitable the airline is ahead of competition and praising the superior performance of the A350, before concluding this is a sad accident without even trying to link the profits to the accident beyond it is the same airline. aka. chatGPTim's hobby horse.

You need a tragic loss of life to understand that?

You don't know that and you shouldn't say that. Have some respect for the family. I usually like your posts but this one you should stay quiet on.

Easy peasy. Don't click on a story that doesn't interest you.

I've also read the blog daily for over a decade. I don't see that there is more of this type of story now. It has always covered numerous aspects of air travel.

Ben:
Your comments sound to me like someone that has never worked at a physical job, let alone a job with risk for injury.

I was a production supervisor with 10 people each shift, and all were experienced workers.

Sometimes safe awareness, safe practices, and attention to detail, were not the worker's top priority.

Everyone that has worked on an hourly basis with a production goal or target knows one must act with a sense of purpose and sometime urgency.

If there is some sort of different shifts, or different start times weekly, that complicates the employee focus.

I am sorry for the death that occurred.

It is not always the company's fault.

I'm not going to comment on what caused this, because I was not there. BUT, I was a gate agent when younger, for two of the big 4 carriers of the time. We'd do ramp on Saturdays (loved it). Loved marshaling planes...imagine as a plane nerd getting to do that.

I can tell you this. Over the past 1-2 years, we have seen more engine ingestions, and pilots either unresponsive or dying in flight. Flight attendants (unresponsive - yeah, Im sure you guys don't get to hear about these) and FA's dying in flight. Let's not forget TWO, omg TWO planes, one out of HNL, and the other out of DOH, plunging towards the ocean/sea after take off. Runway incursions. Weird aborted landings. I haven't even gotten to the passengers yet. I can assure you, prior to 2019 - these were truly in the proper sense of the word. RARE! Things happened, but not what we are seeing nowadays.

Honestly, I feel most people today are too blind to connect the dots, but worse, many are not even seeing it. It gets passed off as rare. Oh yes, another "rare" Aurora Borealis visible in the UK, Spain, Virginia, Colorado, CA/Mexico border. Yeah "rare" Cant be rare when it happens every week since February.

All of these aviation "events" above, and others.... hmmm, think about it.

I said about a year ago. These aviation events would continue and get worse.

I love the airline industry, and although I am no longer a part of it (for many years now) I still get to hear stuff from airline employees high up enough to know the daily truths (over gossip) I'ts sad to see the demise of it, in all areas.

you are out of line.
WAY out of line. But it is clear you have absolutely no remorse or inhibitions.
Nowhere did I say anything about the A350 or any financials.

There was something very different about Unifi's statement than was said for other workplace incidents.
I DON'T know what happened but I know this should not be put in the same category as other incidents.

And it also has nothing to do with finances or the A350.

So why do you think it is becoming more common and what do you think can be done to make it rare again?

Agree.

100% agree. Always someone else's fault.

So only read the articles that interst you.

Agree with the comments that discuss immediately blaming the airline or supervisors or others involved in the incident. People these days seem not to take personal responsibility. As there have been other similar incidents recently I think we need to consider a new approach for how this can be prevented. As someone else mentioned it seems that there are a lot more of these incidents than ever before, not just with ground workers but with other airline and aviation professionals too. Perhaps we need to consider how pilots and flight captains can communicate with grounds crew to alert them of what is going on. It seems that a specific detail can change the entire situation. Perhaps it is about the structure and details of the deals with the airlines and outsourced ground crew, etc.

Anyone who has dealt with the rotating shell game of DL ground handling services knows this is not out of line, more like expected. Always playing subcontractors off each other to keep the prices dirt cheap at the expense of experience, surprised it doesn’t happen more often. But as it wasn’t a DL mainline employee ED doesn’t give a crap! Nothing but cannonfodder (or turbofan fodder) in the eyes of big D.

First of all I’m here to offer my condolences regardless of why this happened. Two people within 1 year gone from the same issue and it’s absolutely awful. I couldn’t imagine having to hear the news if it were someone I knew personally.

Secondly, I literally work in this field in this exact capacity. I’ve been told numerous times before I even got to touch a plane that these engines are nothing to heck with. Make ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN that the engines are off before approaching an airplane or passing behind one. I’ve done this type of work for years and each time, every time: I get a good look at the front of the plane from a very safe distance to ensure I don’t become a casualty. Those engines aren’t going to stop for me, so I stop and wait for them.

This type of incident is absolutely unthinkably tragic and rare. It shouldn’t be happening at all!

Honestly it shouldn’t be necessary since before now, these incidents weren’t really prone to occur. Hundreds of thousands of ramp agents know better than to approach an aircraft when there’s even a possibility that the engines are still running, and if the ramp servicemember were late to a briefing regarding a flight or really new: this should have been discussed at length during training. I don’t believe for one single second that this very important hazard weren’t discussed during training.

That’s because:
1.) It’s substantially more expensive due to the increased strain being placed on the engine and the additional fuel being swallowed for that operation.
2.) It’s substantially more risky. Much more of an opportunity to injest or jetblast something or someone.

The pushback vehicles are a much more effective tool.

This is really the fake Tim Dunn.
No other fluff is mentioned because you didn't pull a Tim Dunn.

Let's just be honest. It's a little of everything.

But I think especially:

Delta saving money and outsourcing ground contracting at many airports, including those served only by mainline flights, to a low-cost contractor. As soon as you outsource, you lose a lot of control. You're seeing this at hotels in London and other expensive labor markets, where housekeeping is often outsourced to staffing agencies.

Most accidents are human error or fatigue-related. You probably had a worker at the end of his or her shift who may or may not have been experienced.

first of all, that is all true if this were an accident but there are indications that have been repeated multiple times by credible people that this wasn't just like other accidents. We simply do not know if there is any truth but the language from multiple parties involved in the case is significantly different than with other known accidents.

I agree…. Something is off with Tim, he is posting as if he’s a normal human being I might want to have a conversation with. Hmmmm

kinda like what AA and UA are STILL doing w/ regional jet services and DL decided to quit doing several years ago?

And there we have it: suicide.

Tim,

I’m talking about the ground handling subcontractor shell game, which is the issue at hand, not regional lift…. Try to stay on topic! DL always excelling at treating their subcontractors like dirt, always weaseling out of contractual obligations… a horrible airline to do business with.

... to add to your comment, the finding of likely suicide comes from the medical examiner.

I agree that it’s silly that medical examiners make these findings, quite especially in this case. That being said, the NTSB closed its investigation, which is very telling.

I feel really badly for those who feel suicide is the only option they have. And yet it's such a selfish decision, what of the large number of people who saw or dealt with this act who now have to deal with it for the rest of their lives?

If you're struggling PLEASE get mental health help

Left a Note

I think we now know that the assumption was indeed correct and I concur with Tim Dunn that the legal language used was strongly pointing towards that:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jun/26/texas-airport-worker-jet-engine-suicide