crap like that happens with frightening frequency

Chris_F wrote on Feb 14^th, 2007 at 6:13pm:



Last week I came to work, drove out onto the ramp. There was one aircraft on the ramp, a Citation, with a tug berried at end on under the left wing to a depth of about 2 meters. The wing was in the cab, but had missed the driver. Sometimes a plain picture does not give the whole story. In our case, the Citation was the ONLY aircraft of the ramp and tug and aircraft had come together. How, well luck was on holiday that day. The driver climbed in the tug and reversed out of the hanger, decided to carry on backwards to the next hanger further down the line. He took such a wide curve, that he managed to find the only aircraft out their. If it can go wrong, it will.

The worst part was that it was a visiting aircraft from another country on an over night stop. Also the Citation wing is bonded and not riveted.

Matt

Wow,

DC-9 Captain: Hey you see that in the terminal (looking into the terminal)

First Officer: Yeah, never expected that!

DC-9 Captain: Hey did you feel that?

......

"It was a good pushback cart, so sad it had to come to such a cruel, unhearted death."

Nick (sorry trying to bring a bit of humor into this topic) 

a more likely situation was the tug driving underneath the aircraft.

I have seen a bag loader drive up to the rear cargo door of an emb-145 (door is under an engine) and the guy turned the hydraulic lift on the bag loader on to elevate it to the level of the door... a few seconds of not paying attention he lifted the engine a good 3 or 4 degrees above normal. 

I have seen a tug push a jet neatly right into some concrete barriers that became stuck under the belly of the plane.

have also seen someone use a tug that is too strong for a specific aircraft to be pushed. he hooked up to the nose gear, hit the gas and folded the nose gear up.

or what about the time when the northwest saab 340 maintenance personnel parked the aircraft on an icy ramp and ran off without chocking it... it slid into a 10 foot deep concrete ditch.

Or the Embraer mechanics who did an engine run up without following the proper procedure for setting the brakes... the aircraft accelerated into a hangar door shattering huge panes of glass that were then ingested into the engines and blasted out the back peppering men and equipment nearby. 

there is video of some SAAB 340 out in africa somewhere that was loaded to its aft CG limit without ever having its tail stand installed... it is resting quite nicely on the tail with the cockpit sitting a good 30 feet up in the air at least. 

Stupid Human Tricks galore.

the thing is whenever something like this happens the Ramp personnel who were servicing the aircraft have to be drug and alcohol tested and put on leave of absence until an investigation of why the incident occurred comes to its conclusions. as do the pilots, and any maintenance personnel who might have been dealing with the aircraft at the time even though they might have not even been in control of what the idiot with the tug was doing at the time. everyones life gets interrupted, everyone goes through the whole ordeal regardless of their level of involvement with something like the stories above. not to mention the financial expense of repairs, paperwork, FAA approvals, functional check flights for return to service, 40 or 50 or even 100 hours of in service monitoring by maintenance. And repeat returns to the hangar because some flight crew notices a "very slight vibration at 280 knots to 220 knots while descending in smooth air." or something like that that will liekly never be tracked down - sometimes resulting in the airplane being scrapped.  sad story!

Well done Hagar.

I hoped I wouldn't have to point it out.

Yikes.... the cab in that pushtractor is crushed.  I hope no one got hurt in that incident...