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Air India engineer sucked into an aircraft engine at Mumbai
Tragic news just reported on the BBC;
An Air India technician has died after he was sucked into an aircraft engine at Mumbai airport, the airline says. The accident happened as the jet of flight AI 619 from Mumbai to Hyderabad was being pushed back for departure. Air India chairman Ashwani Lohani described the accident as a "mishap", but it is not yet clear what happened. |
I remember discussing a similar tragedy at ELP years ago with an eyewitness.
Air India staffer sucked into jet engine at Mumbai airport, dies HT Correspondent, Hindustan Times, New Delhi, Mumbai/New Delhi Updated: Dec 16, 2015 23:47 IST An Air India technician died after being sucked into an aircraft engine parked at the Mumbai airport on Wednesday. The mishap occurred when the co-pilot of Mumbai-Hyderabad flight AI 619 mistook a signal for starting the engine and the victim, Ravi Subramanian, got sucked into it at bay 28 of the Chhatrapati Shivaji domestic airport around 8.40pm. “An Air India technician died in a mishap during pushback of flight AI 619; the incident is being investigated,” Air India CMD Ashwani Lohani said. “We are deeply saddened and regret the tragic incident at Mumbai airport,” he added. “The body is still stuck in the engine, efforts are going on to retrieve it,” an airport official said on condition of anonymity as he was not authorised to speak on the matter. An Air India source said a probe has been ordered into the incident. “At the moment, we are absolutely clueless on how this person was near the aircraft. Only an inquiry can establish whose negligence it was and whether the engine should have been switched on at that time,” the official said. |
It's not as uncommon as you may think. There was a similar incident with, I believe, a Continental 737 in the States a few years ago. I'll try and get the link.
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=1ae_1273782186 |
Pennsylvania Air National Guard A-7, Dec 24th 1979?, Pittsburgh Int'l
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Poor bugger!
This is the only thing that has ever kept me awake at night. Be careful out there chaps. |
sucked into engine
This clip springs to mind... this guy survived though, very lucky..
My condolences for the family of the air India engineer. https://youtu.be/unXNdrtf2_g |
It's not as uncommon as you may think. There was a similar incident with, I believe, a Continental 737 in the States a few years ago. http://www.ntsb.gov/_layouts/ntsb.av...06FA056&akey=1 The maintenance supervisor I spoke with said it appeared that the mechanic had his ball cap come off and when he stood up to catch it he got ingested by the CFM. He also said there was confusion over whether the run up was to be at 70% N1 or 70% N2. In the 1989 United 811 B-747 cargo door failure out of HNL several passengers were ejected from the aircraft and human remains were found in engine number 3 after the emergency landing back in HNL. One story floating around the business at the time was that the engine was quietly barged out to sea and sunk. But, I read in a travel column years ago that the engine was buried near SFO and a memorial was erected. Anyone know which, if either, of these accounts is correct? :confused: |
UA811 was in the US and the coroner was in charge of the remains.
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Another account from the Indian Express with a few more details:
An aircraft technician with Air India was killed Wednesday at Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport when he was sucked into the engine of an aircraft that was getting ready to taxi. The incident occurred as the Mumbai-Hyderabad flight AI 619 began its pushback at 8.46 pm. The technician, Ravi Subramanian, got pulled into the engine and died instantly. Hours later, the process of extricating the severely mutilated body was still underway. An investigation was announced by Air India immediately. The DGCA also ordered an inquiry. In a statement, Air India chairman and managing director Ashwani Lohani said, “We are deeply saddened and regret the tragic incident at Mumbai airport this evening when an Air India technician died in a mishap during pushback of flight AI 619. The incident is being investigated.” Speaking to The Indian Express, Lohani said, “The flight was already boarded. It was ready for take-off. While it was pushing back to come on the airstrip, he (Subramanian) was working on the ground. His body got entangled in the engine.” Pushback is the process of using tugs or tows to move an aircraft backward before it taxies out. Subramaniam, 56, was a Vashi resident and worked as a service engineer. His job included disconnecting the pushcart from the aircraft before it moves towards the runway. When the accident happened, an aircraft maintenance engineer was also with him. According to the standard operating procedure, a maintenance engineer first gives clearance to the pilot by waving a red flag, after which the pilot can start the engine for taxiing out. According to an eyewitness, it appeared that the flight captain may have started the engine before the clearance, though officials could not confirm this immediately. Subramanian was near the nose wheel along with the pushcart when the engine started and he was sucked in. The Mumbai Police is also investigating the accident. “Prima facie evidence indicates a case of accidental death, no one appears to be at fault,” Virendra Mishra, zonal DCP, said. A case of accidental death has been registered at the Sahar police station. Like a many of us, I've operated out of BOM a few times over the years. I've always had the ground engineer on the headset from what I remember. With AI does the ground guy really wave a red flag as clearance to start? :confused: |
The red flag will be the NWS pin streamer, to indicate all clear.
However it's possible they saw him walking away with pin and started taxiing not realising another person was still walking away from aircraft. Just a guess.... |
The red flag will be the NWS pin streamer, to indicate all clear. |
Something doesn't add up.
The first report said that he was ingested when the engine started. Even if he was standing right next to the engine as it started, surely it wasn't immediately producing enough power to ingest him as it spooled up to idle. The next report said that he was standing by the nosegear when it happened. Had that been true, we'd be killing people every day. No doubt something horrible happened, but it doesn't seem that we have the full story yet. |
Check Airman,
Yes, I raised an eyebrow at those two as well. From the very limited information we have at the moment, I think goeasy's guess could be close to the mark. Very sad. |
Subramanian was near the nose wheel along with the pushcart when the engine started and he was sucked in. Does anyone know the aircraft type? |
There would have to have been a helluva lot of power applied for him to have been ingested. Maybe a crossbleed start?:( Absolutely tragic
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Originally Posted by framer
(Post 9212946)
Does anyone know the aircraft type?
Originally Posted by kibz2005
(Post 9212956)
Maybe a crossbleed start?
Technician sucked into Air India plane engine in Mumbai airport, killed | The Indian Express "It was reported that the APUs [sic] on the aircraft were not functional, so it was impossible to start both engines on the taxiway. Hence, one engine was started with ground power before pushback, and pushback was taking place with that engine on idle. After pushback, the engine would be revved up to 35%, and the second engine started with power from the running engine (since the APUs were not functional). It appears that the running engine was revved up *before* the pushback cart and personnel had moved to safe locations." |
Does anyone know the aircraft type? |
if one engine had been started with the airstart unit due an inop APU why was eng #2 not started the same way or does one only start engine #1 first then disconnect airstart then use cross bleed air to start #2 ?
or does an A319 not need an airstart if no APU? (news to me if it does) they keep mentioning a pushcart - which would be near the nose out of harms way #?? |
if one engine had been started with the airstart unit due an inop APU why was eng #2 not started the same way |
thanks for that
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I am sure you can't be sucked into an engine in idle mode from the nose gear position
He was either closer or engines we higher than idle |
I read they had an APU inop, and were in the midst of a cross bleed start... Indian news paper.
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rog747,
Normal practice with a u/s APU is to crossbleed-start the second engine, as you thought. This is sometimes done during pushback, I think, although the increased thrust on the delivering engine puts a strain on whatever vehicle is being used for the pushback. Better to wait until pushback is complete and the parking brake on. If the apron is too busy, it can obviously be done before pushback, provided pier structures and ground equipment are well clear of the delivering engine. |
There is a suggestion on the link I posted earlier, again unconfirmed, that the tug had cleared the aircraft but the parking brake had not been applied, causing the aircraft to roll forward when power was increased on the running engine.
That's hard to believe, but if true would explain how an experienced professional could be caught off guard, with tragic results. |
Straying from SOP's and running engines is a bad combination, start doing that regularly [and I know, having been the innocent party on the subsequent receiving end] and the countdown counter is started....
poor guy, what a horrible death. RIP |
A lot of airports don't allow more than one engine to be started at the gate. I can think of numerous reasons, one being that other engines may be too close to the aerobridge. When pilot is ready for start-up, he shall seek confirmation from the ground crew for hazard free zone prior to starting ACFT engines. On receipt of the clearance, pilot shall read back the push-back clearance given by ATC, then coordinate with ground crew for push-back and start-up of the ACFT. To expedite departure, the Pilot-In-Command may start engines (on idle power) before commencing push-back on the ACFT stand, in coordination with the ground crew. No cross-bleed start-up by ACFT is permitted till the push-back and/or pull ahead procedure is complete and the ACFT is aligned with the taxilane/taxiway center-line marking. Pilots shall adhere to the push-back and start-up procedures and will use minimum breakaway power. Pilots shall use minimum taxi power when operating on the apron areas to minimize effect of jet blast in the surrounding areas. The taxi procedure is given as: Power out facing North-West on taxilane K1. Taxi out via taxilane K1. Something doesn't add up. The first report said that he was ingested when the engine started. Even if he was standing right next to the engine as it started, surely it wasn't immediately producing enough power to ingest him as it spooled up to idle. The next report said that he was standing by the nosegear when it happened. Had that been true, we'd be killing people every day. No doubt something horrible happened, but it doesn't seem that we have the full story yet. Some of these reporting discrepancies are probably due to the polyglot Indian culture. In BOM, often the eyewitness and expert interviews in the news are conducted in Hindi or Marathi and translated into the local BOM dialect of English. Throughout Asia and the Middle East many of our ground engineers also speak Tamil or Malayalam as well. Those folks have fixed my plane so many times over the years. :ok: Anyway, AI mourns the loss of a colleague: Air India offers job, Rs 5 lakh ex-gratia to dead technician's kin By PTI | 17 Dec, 2015, 04.20PM IST MUMBAI: Air India Chairman Ashwani Lohani today announced an ex-gratia of Rs 5 lakh [about USD $7,500 - Airbubba] and a job in the airline to the family of the AI engineer who was killed in a freak accident wherein he got sucked in by the engine. "We have lost a family member. An ex-gratia amount of Rs 5 lakh has been given to the family. We have also offered a job to the family of the victim," Lohani told reporters at the airport today. He said the funeral of Ravi Subramanian, in his 40s, will be held tomorrow and a two-minute silence will be observed in AI offices across the network at 11 AM. When asked about the reason of the accident, according to him, he said since the regulator DGCA is already conducting an inquiry into the incident it will not be proper for him to comment. However, he said "initially it seems that there was some communication gap. No disciplinary action has been taken against anyone till now". In a freak accident last evening involving an AI flight (619, an Airbus 319) to Hyderabad from Mumbai, a service engineer, who was signalling the aircraft to reverse before take-off, got sucked in by the roaring engine and died immediately. The impact of the engine was so hard that the remains of the body could not even be sent for postmortem. |
An A319 AOM indicates the "danger zone" for an engine at idle thrust as an area around the engine with a radius of 7.2ft, and for an engine at TO thrust as an area with a radius of 19.5ft.
For information only, for an A319, nineteen-and-a-half feet, (the danger zone when the engine is at takeoff thrust), is just behind the cockpit. One cannot possibly imagine an engine a such thrust settings during pushback or initial taxi. Seven feet is a few feet in front of the leading edge of the wing where it meets the fuselage - a long way from the nosewheel area. |
I remember a flight with the Chief Pilot as Captain, suddenly starting the left engine without the ground clearance and a Mekanik was standing before the engine, happily no accident but the Mekanik was very very angry. I (F/O) was terrified to see the Captain being in a hurry and doing such a dangerous action without to feel culprit nor excuse.
I did wonder how many many pilots did not respect the Mekaniks and ground Crews. |
Roulis, the rarity of such a terrible event shows how strictly the engine-starting routines are for air carriers.
Millions of departures over decades, and only a few such serious occurrences. Likely it is not as simple as a just matter of "respect for Mekaniks [sic] and ground Crews". Let us be patient, for we do not yet know the circumstances surrounding this particular accident yet and how a routine engine start ended so tragically. |
It may be interesting to note that human ingestion events were far more likely in the days before high bypass engines became the norm. When JT3C/D and JT8D engines were the norm, people were not nearly as cautious and ingestion events were not particularly uncommon. Of course, since those engine had inlet guide vanes, an ingestion event was not automatically fatal (although they occasionally were). There is a video out there (presumably on you-tube if someone wants to search) where, during carrier ops, a crewman gets ingested into a (IIRC) A-6. The engine promptly surges and spits him back out with non-life threatening injuries.:eek:
For a surprisingly long time after big fan engines became common, there were no human ingestion events - presumably because an couple meter diameter fan, unprotected, spinning at several hundred rpm provided sufficient fear factor to keep people alert. Unfortunately that record didn't remain intact, but given the tens of thousands of big turbofan operations that occur each and day world wide (and the lax safety standards in some areas), such events remain remarkably (and thankfully) rare. |
Wearing ear protection, is it possible to differentiate if more than one engine is at idle from ones sense of hearing alone?
If it is the case that one engine was not at idle is it possible to determine by hearing aline, which one when wearing ear protection? How long does spoolup take at startup to the point where threat of ingestion is lethal? Mickjoebill |
FDMII,
Of course I didn't want to suggest any responsibility in the Air India accident. But 1. Pilot starting the engine is always specially concerned by ground Crews 2. I met some mekanik students at school and one of them said "Captains are always in a hurry". Of course we have never enough time, but I told the students they could not totally trust to pilot, they had to keep distance with that for them dangerous hurry 3. It is a sad fact, at least in civilian aviation in France, that pilots are seeing themselves like God and seeing mekaniks like robot slaves but ask them their life, rest, safety, reputation... and close the mouth about "God"s' mistakes. |
How long does spoolup take at startup to the point where threat of ingestion is lethal? |
Some more detail:
Airport horror: scan onLapses Ground staff and the pilots have been blaming each other. A top Air India source said the pilots appeared to have started the engine without the ground engineers' clearance after the pushback, causing Subramaniam, who was standing before the engine, to be pulled into it. "They started the engines as soon as Ravi gave his helper the instruction to remove the tow bar, which is clamped on during a pushback. The ATC clearance for the flight to begin taxiing came right then and the pilot asked the co-pilot to check whether both sides of the aircraft were clear," the source said. "The co-pilot said it was and the pilot pushed the thrust lever, starting the engines, and Ravi got sucked in." Ravi still had his headset on and was facing the tow truck with his back to the engine as his helper removed the tow bar and the pilots pulled the throttle. "They are calling it a communication gap because they do not want to upset the pilots," said a member of the ground staff who claimed to have been present in the area at the time of the accident. "First, the pilots did not wait for ground staff clearance before starting the engine. Second, they had to ensure that both the left and right sides of the aircraft were clear before they started the engine. This is SOP," the groundsman said. |
Thanks, Oliver.
This is going to be tedious. India - where all facts have to be first processed through the sieve of 'cultural sensitivities'. This will, no doubt, keep an army of public servants and opportunists in work for at least a year. The pilots will then be exonerated and poor Ravi will be found to have been having 'problems at home' or somesuch. The gushingly generous, sub-judice award to his family of $7000 and a sweeper's job for one his kids amply demonstrates AI's thoughts on the matter. |
Originally Posted by DaveReidUK
(Post 9213232)
There is a suggestion on the link I posted earlier, again unconfirmed, that the tug had cleared the aircraft but the parking brake had not been applied, causing the aircraft to roll forward when power was increased on the running engine.
That's hard to believe, but if true would explain how an experienced professional could be caught off guard, with tragic results. From the link a couple of posts above: "In this case, no chocks were placed on the wheels. So, as soon as the pilot started the engine - again without following norms, like waiting for an all-clear signal from the ground engineers - the wheels of the plane moved forward and the engine sucked in the technician standing ahead." |
Mercifully, these incidents are rare. However, close calls do happen more often than you think. Some that I have witnessed.
1. Medium sized turboprop starts taxing before engineer was clear. (Eng had to run to avoid getting hit by the prop). 2. A large four engined jet started taxiing before the all clear had been given. The two engineers that we're walking clear hit the deck and hung on to each other as the #3 engine went over them. (I understand the captain was fired) 3. Large jet twin waiting on stand for GPU to be connected with engines running due to inop APU. One of the turnaround team walked towards the running engine, head down, oblivious of the danger. Saved by quick thinking loaders and others yelling and waving at him. 4. Similar to no.3 but a security person walked towards and past then behind a running engine. How that didn't end in tragedy I do not know. It's dangerous out there. Be safe and never, ever rush. A delay means more paperwork. That's all. |
Whilst these incidents are rare, when they happen the consequencies are horrific.
We lost a colleague at Hatfield in similar circumstances and I sometimes think about him and all the guys who were working with him at the time and wonder whether what happened that day still has any effects on them today. When blame is dished out it won't change things that much. It might stop another Air India employee suffering the same fate but it will happen again somewhere else around the world. RIP JC |
I remember this happening at British Aerospace Hatfield in 1980s, mentioned here before
http://www.pprune.org/engineers-tech...00-engine.html http://www.pprune.org/questions/9496...ave-stand.html Only factual report I can find https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=...page&q&f=false Not much changed in standards in Journalism Sadly history keeps repeating http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/3...gine-test.html |
I was initially wondering why there would be a pushback or towbar involved if the aircraft was indeed on taxi out stand 28 as reported.
That 'Power out facing North-West on taxilane K1. Taxi out via taxilane K1.' instruction quoted earlier seems to be removed in the latest Jepp revision. But, the crossbleed start guidance is still there: 'No cross-bleed start-up by ACFT is permitted till the push-back and/or pull ahead procedure is complete and the ACFT is aligned with the taxilane/taxiway center-line marking.' So, was the plane towed to K1 after the first engine start to assure clearance to run up the power to start the second engine? And to avoid a higher than usual thrust setting on one engine with a row of aircraft behind on stands 34 through 40? Whatever the case, APU inop start is an unusual situation, everyone's startup workflows are not normal, there are several options and I always try hard to make sure we all have the same plan. Sometimes you start one engine in the blocks, sometimes two if the huffer hose and connection permit, or do the crossbleed start etc. And, speaking of single engine taxi, there is some PTU or something that makes the A319 sound like skeletons on a tin roof back in the cabin during single engine taxi as I recall from riding in one a while back. |
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