Bad couple of days for NWA at MSP.....
'Inches from disaster'
Life working around large aircraft can be very dangerous. But fuel truck driver Bruce Burns never imagined being involved in, and better yet, surviving an accident with a plane.
"I am just surprised I am standing here right now," said Burns, who talked exclusively to 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS.
Bruce Burns was driving a truck filled with fuel at Minneapolis/St. Paul International Airport when he said he blacked out and slammed right into a DC-9 parked at the airport. The pictures are incredible; the fact that there wasn't an explosion is a near miracle.
"There is 2,000 gallons of fuel and 1,000 gallons of jet fuel in there. If it exploded, the aircraft, the truck would have been gone. And I wouldn't be sitting here right now. There was potential for disaster."
Burns said he was ending a 16-hour day when the crash happened. The violent collision pushed the plane—which weighs 57,000 pounds empty—10 feet sideways.
"I don't remember anything prior to the accident and I don't remember driving into the aircraft or anything like that," Burns said.
Airport police have been looking at tapes from surveillance cameras. They are trying to determine exactly what happened. In the meantime Burns realizes that in this world of huge planes and heavy trucks, he survived by the tiniest of margins.
"A few inches over, and I probably would have been killed." **********************************************
......Don't know how long this link will be alive...
http://www.kstp.com/article/stories/S8166.html?cat=1