Texas airport worker dies after being sucked into Delta plane engine | Hacker News Reader

Texas airport worker dies after being sucked into Delta plane engine

bbc.com

16 pointsfrutiger16 comments

In the intervening time between last Friday and today, it was ruled a suicide:

https://news4sanantonio.com/news/local/new-update-on-worker-...

Pretty shit way to do it. Cleaning human remains out of a jet engine seems fairly traumatizing.

Not just that but the air crew and passengers being aware of this and it affecting their day and making them reckon with this person's death. The grief of the pilot who has been without any human injury or death on their craft. So much!

"The worker's employers say an initial investigation shows the incident was unrelated to safety procedures, but it is not yet clear how it happened."

This seems plainly related to safety procedures: either they weren't followed, and they were able to be not followed in a way that led to death, or they had a gap in said procedures that led to "correct" actions leading to death.

The alternative is it was intentional, which while possible generally results in articles saying something like "It is unclear what happened.<paragraph break>Hotline numbers if you need to talk to someone are ..."

And if the mental health of employees isn’t part of aircraft safety then why not?

Well, as is the case for pilots, it generally leads to the employees hiding their mental health issues and not getting help for fear of running afoul of FAA regulations and barred from the cockpit.

The Germanwings scenario.

> This seems plainly related to safety procedures: either they weren't followed, and they were able to be not followed in a way that led to death

This isn't inherently a failing in the safety system - no system can make something safe. Lock out tag out systems are one thing, but a plane on the apron needs to start its engines. We also need people on the apron for obstructions, maneuvering, etc.

I'm not sure how you can prevent one of those people from running at the engine intake, short of tugs pushing aircraft literally on to the taxiway (much much slower), tugs with operators who are locked into the tug, mind you, until it gets to a certain proximity from the aircraft such that the engine can be shut down? Not just that aircraft but any aircraft (or else you jump out your cab, and run to the aircraft two behind you on the taxiway and get into that plane's intake area.

Safety systems are designed to make things safer, generally, not safe.

Another case?! On New Year’s Eve, a worker got sucked into an engine and died. Even though the pilots announced they’d have one engine running and there were safety briefings minutes prior.

All the union busting efforts are showing their consequences in worker safety.

From the linked article:

«Officials have not yet named the employee of Unifi Aviation, which Delta Air Lines contracts for ground crew operations.»

«"From our initial investigation, this incident was unrelated to Unifi's operational processes, safety procedures and policies," the company said.»

Pleased to know they exonerated themselves.

Please give us the inside scoop on whom was at fault as you appear to have already decided based on the limited information that has been released to the public. If you have another source for FACTS relating to the matter rather than your arm chair analysis. I’m all ears.

There's word spreading around that a note was found and this was suicide.

Workplace environment contributes as a causative factor behind many depression episodes. It can't be dismissed as not work related just because it was a suicide. Remember the Germanwings crash?

An opinion presented as fact.

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