Southwest 737 strikes person on runway in Austin
 

Not many details yet.

Edited LiveATC.net audio.

.zip file will open on most computers, not on most phones or tablets.

https://www.paddleyourownkanoo.com/2...hursday-night/

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....41380791b.jpeg

Could this be a suicide? Brought on by the covid layoffs? Pure speculation of course, but since this happened in the usa with all their security, in stead of an african nation, it does come to mind.

Clearly suicide, and with all sympathies to the individual, what a selfish way to do it.
I had a buddy who was Transport Police - he told me a few tales of railway suicides. Firstly the poor BTP guys had to hunt for all of the bits, and the drivers would often need counselling and be affected for a long time. The last i heard he was on long t term leave for PTSD.
So my sympathies not to the ingested, but to the drivers.

Do not know how the fencing is done in Austin , but climbing over a simple fence and running is not that complicated and even if detected can take a while to stop . In San Jose Costa Rica domestic airport , just outside the fence is a large psychiatric hospital , it not uncommon to have patients escaping and jumping the fence and wandering on the runway, fortunately they have bright colored overalls,so they can be spotted early. but not so much if a night :(

I don't recall ever seeing a dent in an inlet cowl of that magnitude

Bird strike test spec 1.8kg
Suicidal texan circa 100kg

It’s one of the reasons why train drivers are still highly paid here in Ireland, because of what they have to go through when someone throws themselves off the platform.

The damage looks more like it hit a vehicle.

How do you know that ?

Happened in ATL a few years ago.

Listening to the Travis County EMS communications on radioreference.com it appears that they found an approximately 30 year-old male, 'obvious DOA'. There was some minor confusion about access to the scene for the med units for the pronouncement.

If yesterday's victim had got onto the runway by exiting from an aircraft, I think we'd know by now.

In the U.S., the FAA establishes requirements for airport perimeter security fencing. Generally, a minimum of 8ft. high chain link fencing topped by 2ft. of barbed wire is required, and the barbed wire leans outward at a 45 degree angle. Climbing over such a fence would be a real challenge, and "jumping the fence" would be a feat of Olympic caliber. As with most security measures, almost any can be compromised or defeated, but hopefully the trespasser would be sufficiently slowed that security personnel could take appropriate action. One cannot just innocently wander onto an airport property and then stroll onto an active runway. Significant effort is usually required to defeat airport security, and the casual or "innocent" individual is usually deterred.

Cheers,
Grog

Jhyrin Jones (19) did first climb a fence around Hartsfield-Jackson before climbing onto the wing of an aircraft on a taxiway. The initial report that he had been a passenger of the plane and had used an exit door was incorrect.

More on the 2018 ATL incident.

Crazed Man Jumps Atlanta Airport Fence, Climbs Atop Wing Of Packed Delta Jet | The Smoking Gun

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....e47a27592f.jpg
https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....a52260e412.jpg

Luv Struck
 

Jungle Drums (OK, WhatsApp) speak of a suicide note discovered.
I hope this poor individual wasn't a recently furloughed airport worker. As a weekly or more visitor to the South Terminal in AUS I've met some lovely folks there..

Suicidal people seldom consider how their actions might affect others - Andreas Lubitz (Germanwings) being an extreme example.
My sister's husband was a locomotive engineer (now retired) His train once hit an auto in what was believed to be suicide attempt. The driver of the auto survived (the train wasn't going very fast at the time), but according to my sister her hubby took it quite hard with nightmares and the like for many months afterward.

The ATL guy scaled a fence to get on the taxiway.

From social media a supposed picture of work on the Southwest AUS plane the next day. Is this a new cowling perhaps?

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....868c702639.jpg

Probably. Either that, or SWA employs some very skilled panel-beaters, :O

And this is why mental health is still such a taboo subject for so many people :rolleyes:

Assuming this was suicide, the person involved was literally mentally ill - there would have been no reasoning, just a route to end what was perceived as suffering. That usually means feeling that the world and their family is better off without them, not that they specifically don't want to live. To that person, at that time, they're anything but selfish - they're doing this for all the right reasons, however skewed they may be.

I have complete and utter sympathy for those left to pick up the pieces, both physically and emotionally, but to blame the person involved is unfair.

My sympathies to the crew involved, not the way they were expecting their day to turn out.

Looks to me like they are preparing to remove the engine and give it over to the coroner. The cowling that took the beating is still attached but mostly hidden in the pix

Is that really the protocol?

None of the panels pictured in post #22 have hit anything.

The picture is obviously photo-shopped.

we don't see anything on the pics...

I can't bring myself to use the word "protocol" based on my limited experience in these ,matters in the USA. Other countries ????

The problem I have seen is that the overhaul shops don't like accepting the job nor how "some" coroners feel about the mishandling of human remains. YMMV but I typically avoid getting into such details

Human ingestion on large turbofans is surprisingly rare - last number I saw was something like once every ten years, worldwide. So I'd be a bit surprised if there is an established protocol for something that happens so rarely (and it's not like the cause of death is in question).
Interestingly, ingestion events were far more common with the low bypass fans (e.g. JT8D) - there used to be more than one a year (although not always fatal since there were inlet guide vanes that kept them out of the fan). Apparently those big fans make people wary enough that they stay well clear?

Last one I remember was ELP on a MX run.

As tdracer pointed out above, jet engine human ingestion is pretty rare, and there would probably be no over-all (macro) protocol to handle such a situation; however, embedded in a 'macro' protocol would be numerous minor protocols to deal with the details of the investigation. Examples of the so-called minor protocols would include such things as chain-of-custody/evidence, incident scene documentation, site preservation, site safety etc. and would all be part of the overall investigation. General guidelines or protocols are established for different circumstances, but those circumstances can vary so much that they would not be considered to be reasonably foreseeable. Often a body is recovered by a law enforcement agency and then transferred to the jurisdiction of the medical examiner; however, at a stable incident site (such as the one that is the subject of this thread), the body usually must be released by the Medical Examiner.

As to lomopaseo's suggestion that the entire engine could be removed and given to the Medical Examiner, that would be entirely possible. For example, in my experience in working with the Miami-Dade County Medical Examiner's Office, I've seen entire automobiles (human remains in situ) taken to the medical examiner's facility. In the case of the subject jet engine (CF-56 ?), my guess is that both police and medical examiner personnel would witness the tear down at a maintenance facility, gathering evidence as the tear down proceeded. As pointed out by lomapaseo, this would not be something the average jet engine mechanic routinely encounters and would be very stressful.

Just my "two-cents".

Cheers,
Grog

I was doubting that the engine would be removed and turned over to the coroner (though in Texas, they still have some independence in their state laws from my experience).

If the ingestion rate has really dropped to once a decade I'd be surprised. The numbers for the 737 family alone were higher in the Boeing article linked below.

From a 2008 Boeing article:

http://www.boeing.com/commercial/aer...icle_04_1.html

Here's an earlier thread with discussions of human ingestion mishaps at BOM and ELP:

https://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/...ne-mumbai.html

In both the BOM and ELP incidents engine thrust was above idle on the ground.

In one of my posts on the thread linked above I mentioned that I had heard two versions of the disposition of an engine with the only recovered remains of some pax in a United 747 cargo door failure out of HNL:

Whatever the case, the UA 811 aircraft was put back into service and flew for several more years.

And the AUS accident aircraft N401WN was fixed and operated to MDW this morning. Don't know if the engine was changed.

What would pulling the engine off the pylon do? Is cause of death in doubt?

I'm totally confused. I reread the thread and found no reference to ingestion. The body was reported as a male found on the runway DOA. The photo of the damaged cowling on the first page has weird areas of 'haziness' at the top of the engine that suggests a photoshop job. More likely is that the 'victim' was struck by the aircraft, not sucked into the engine.

Probably something near 200lb at zero g/s meeting a CFM56 doing 150plus will transfer a massive amount of energy -damage into the engine and spar. Even 10mph ground vehicle impact can lead to extensive structural damage. The Aircraft will be AoG for sometime I imagine..
it's hard to imagine a more messed up week; but here we are...

Make way for its replacement?

And .....

It has already operated AUS-MDW-LAS-SFO and is parked for the evening.