KLM incident at SPL
 

Source: Luchtvaartnieuws

KLM investigates how Tuesday a Boeing 747-400 could collide with a truck that is used for de-icing of aircraft. The Boeing 747-400 began taxiing while an employee of the de icingtruck was still present de-icing the plane. The de-icing vehicle tipped, and the man fell inflicting heavy injuries.

After the accident a trauma helicopter carried the injured man to the hospital. According to KLM, the condition of the victim 'stable'.

The Boeing 747 became damaged by the collision and is in the hangar for repair. KLM Wednesday made no further announcements regarding the nature and extent of the damage to the Boeing 747-400.

On the plane 240 passengers were present. The Boeing would leave for St. Maarten and Curaçao. There was a delay of 4.5 hours before the passangers could continue their journey.

(Thanks to Google Translate)

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AMSTELVEEN - KLM onderzoekt hoe een Boeing 747-400 dinsdagmorgen kon botsen met een truck die wordt gebruik voor het ijsvrij maken van vliegtuigen. Het toestel begon dinsdag op het platform te taxiën terwijl een medewerker van de de-icingtruck nog aanwezig was. Het voertuig kantelde, waarbij de man zwaar ten val kwam. Wat zijn verwondingen zijn, is onduidelijk.


Na het ongeval waren hulpverleners snel ter plaatse. Ook werd een traumahelikopter opgeroepen. Volgens KLM is de toestand van het slachtoffer ‘stabiel’.

De Boeing 747 raakte door de botsing beschadigd en is voor reparatie naar de hangar gereden. Over de aard en omvang van de schade wil KLM woensdag (1 december) geen mededelingen doen.

In het vliegtuig waren 240 passagiers aanwezig. De Boeing zou vertrekken naar Sint Maarten en Curaçao. Met een vervangend toestel kon de vlucht met een vertraging van 4,5 uur alsnog vertrekken.

A sad incident indeed. It is a hazard for winter operations, and at least this one isn't as bad as the Royal Air Maroc incident in Canada:

Transportation Safety Board of Canada - AVIATION REPORTS - 1995 - A95Q0015

Not so good memoirs.
 

This accident happened in front of our eyes as we were next in line. I had the KLM COO at the time on board and I requested him to come to the flight deck. We were all shocked at what had happened.

The report from the Transport Safety Board of Canada is very accurate report; however I am missing a recommendation.

Make deicing and communications a SOP at all airports worldwide so there can be no misunderstandings.

For those of us who are flying in the Northern hemisphere it may be a frequent event for others not. In adverse weather there are several extra things to check, like take of alternates available, take off performance calculations for contaminated runways etc. If on top of that you have to familiarize with the local deicing procedures and communications this could be too much and lead to accidents and incidents.

Well I hope somebody will read this and finds it worthwhile to work this out, I go back to the garden picking olives who are very early this year in the Provence.



Good Flying!


John

If even KLM crew are not up to date with deicing comms procedures at their home base who would be?

Poor show.

Before jumping to conclusions and blaming the flight crew, keep in mind that it is just as likely that they were given permission to taxi before it was safe to do so. Accidents are caused by a number of factors, and this one will be studied and learned from.

communications equipment and -procedures
 

I was de-iced @ AMS this morning, on the remote de-icing pad West of the terminal.

The radio equipment that the de-icing coordinator was using was of very poor quality, and barely readable. When we told him so he said it had been reported before, and was being looked into.

Another issue is the procedure requiring you to keep the ground frequency on stand by. With all the calls on ground, you may not hear the de-icing coordinator. This caused a misunderstanding between us and the coordinator. Not that we were about to taxi without being sure they were clear with this incident fresh on our minds, but still.

Room for improvement, there.

Try ask the guys who have much more snow for much longer time...
(but do not blame them for wx)

If even KLM crew are not up to date with deicing comms procedures at their home base who would be?

Poor show.

@ Piton

Rumor in the company is that the 74 crew got the all clear signal! Unfortunately the deicer was not out of the way!

Just rumor inside the company, investigation will have to determine what really happened, but, for somebody to make assumptions on the KLM crew......very poor show indeed.

I'll venture a personal assumption: the level of intelligence of people posting on this board is going down dramatically(poor show on my part????)

What's your problem? Rumours are rumours, even at KLM where you guys apparently don't make mistakes. Your post doesn't contribute much either. Keep it factual and I am sure the allegation wasn't addressed at you personally and possibly a harmless shot from the hip.

Correndon landed on rwy22 in ams, almost hell broke loose.

Everytime Ryan does something "different", they got attacked.

Some carriers are banned from flying into EU cause of their english..(and correctly!)

BUT, KLM cannot even find the runway to take off from from their homebase!
And now they turn the ship and knock a fellow worker in hospital, again on homebase.........

But, sssssstttttt!:ugh:

flyburg, my comment was a follow on to Good Memories comment that "If on top of that you have to familiarize with the local deicing procedures and communications this could be too much and lead to accidents and incidents."

For the klm crew this was a home game. If on the other hand, as you suggest, the ground crew gave an erroneous "all clear" then the poor show was theirs. Either way not a good result for the lowlanders.....

I kind of like the idea of moving the truck in front of the plane, and waving back and forth until both understand that the it's all done, then the pilots can watch the truck drive away.

If anyone is in a position to propose this, it might not be a bad idea.

A nice idea in principle but logistics get a bit complex if there's a lot of aircraft being de-iced and more than one truck doing it.

(Two trucks / cherry-pickers involved in the RAM incident if I remember correctly)

OK, another idea.
How about any "unit" working on the plane places a cone in front of the plane, then removes it when they leave....

You'd have to place the cone a very long way in-front of any large aircraft to be seen, the cut-off angle from the flight deck is very limiting.

Ok, so it's a flag that's as tall as the flight deck, or twice as tall with flags up and down the pole, on a heavy base that won't blow over, and each unit puts one in front of the plane.

The operation seems fairly basic to me.
 

Confirmation of message received. If there are comm problems, you swap out the ground-based VHF. I'm fairly sure the cost of one of those bits is but a small fraction of just one application of the de-ice juice. Also, I've seen handhelds on the tarmac for other purposes. Why not here?

I am not implying we're all perfect by the way. Accidents/incidents are bound to happen given the tens of thousands of movements daily.

Post the Anchorage fatality, I now make / ensure is made an extra RT call "Please confirm all Gnd Eqpt is clear". Our QRH does not really emphasise this point, and it can end with the "Eqpt Remove" line merging with he "De-Icing Report" requirement, who can be different people.

Judging by the confusion from my colleagues at my request, it is not a common call made? I doubt a robust SOP can be made to cover all the different airfields / de/anti ice requirements, aircraft types, airlines. However, as this and other accident shows, it is a useful "bottom line" for the aircrew.

NoD

There are a few airports, in Germany and elsewhere, where one of the trucks drives around to the front of the aircraft with a nice big, easy-to-read sign with the de-icing code on it (ie. Start/Stop times, Product, mix ratio). Always clearer than radio, and good confirmation the process is complete. :ok:

Best Practice?

Offensive comments such as really have no place on a forum such as this. All departments of KLM take safety really seriously and believe me, many people will be having sleepless nights over this incident. Not because they are fearing for their jobs but because they will be thinking about what they could have done to stop this from happening in the first place. If I'm to speculate, I'll suggest that the OVV will investigate this accident and the results will be published so we can all learn.

Personally, I just wish the poor guy concerned a speedy recovery.

PM

Checkboard

May I respectfully disagree 100% := Yes - that does confirm the de-icing is complete... it does not mean there are no vehicles stuck / working behind you in a universal worldwide fashion.

Hence my comment above... to make it more bullet proof, you as crew, insist 100% that you receive a postive radio call/response to "all vehicles and personnel clear". Hate to use CYA, but at least in this case it is also on the CVR :ooh:

NoD

Obviously, the procedure for ensuring the aircraft was clear of GSE/personnel failed.

Make this procedure more robust & sustainable to prevent a recurrence.

That is what is needed, not a blame game, when peoples lives are clearly at risk.

Well now's the time to propose sensible solutions. Input from pilots, heavies down to commuters, plus the guys who drive the de-icers, could well produce an international standard. The old railway token system is a possibility (but practically - unlikely). Example - If any de-icer working an aircraft had their token in hand then flashing red lights would show ahead of the pilot. The lights would only change to green when all vehicles were clear, confirmed by the drivers plugging in their tokens to an 'off area' token plinth. As de-iced aircraft moves on tokens are removed from plinths and lights change to red for next aircraft to pull forward - to lights.

Needs some refinement - but ........ any other ideas. Only simple ideas that aren't affected by blocked radio transmissions etc.

There's clearly a disconnect between the flight deck and the ground crew.
I'm thinking that getting representatives from both groups together is critical, as stated above,and that there should become an international standard.

But I think the first thing that needs to be expressed to the ground crew is that the flight deck can't see below them, to the left, to the right, or behind.... the flight deck can't see if anyone is in/around the aircraft.

Interestingly, this is not a problem backing out of the gate because someone is driving the push-back cart and they can see all around the aircraft.

So we're going to see this problem occur during de-icing more than anywhere else, when the de-icing is not happening at the gate - and maybe that's why some airports went to gate de-icing in the first place - if the de-icing is taking place at the same location in the taxi then there could be a "supervisor" in a jeep who drives in front of the plane and moves only when it's all clear.

At any rate, there needs to be a standard in place the prevents this type of thing from happening again. It gives a really bad impression to the public when a plane runs into the ground crew at 2 miles an hour.

No remorse....who requested de-ice????

It's like Christmas, it happens every year.....same time and plenty of time to prepare for the next and the next and the next.........

Feel sorry for the guy in hospital though

Moi/, there should be no need as there is already someone in such a position. The set up at AMS for remote de-icing is that the pad supervisor is in contact with the rigs, de-icing control and the aircraft. He is also mobile (small Mercedes 4x4) and from that position, should be able to determine that all de-icing trucks are clear. On completion of de-icing, you are told the start of your holdover time, the fluid/s used and the last phrase normally uttered is "...and all de-icing vehicles are now clear. Please re-contact Ground for taxi."

What is unclear is what knocked the truck over. Was it the tail or was it jet blast? Either way, the de-icing truck was vulnerable as soon as it had completed it task.

PM

I think the simplest answer is that in de-icing areas you have a stopbar operated by the de-icers.

And I know that people will say that lighting should only be controlled by ATC, but I know at Tulla behind the Menzies cargo shed, we could control airfield lighting.

Food for thought.

Keep it stupid simple
 

In CDG, one of the de-icing trucks in front of the A/C keeps its crane right in front of the cockpit windows (2 meters or so). I mean right in front of your nose ! It is impossible to start taxiing before de-icing supervisor declares the area clear of personnel/vehicles. Then only the crane is removed from view... This makes de-icing ops a little slower than e.g. in scandinavian countries but is definitely safer. FFT.

bid deal,
someone almost got killed. who knows he couldve gotten stuck in the flaps and got a free ride to st.maarten.

in any ways, it's a sad incident,.. in now way able to blame the cockpit crew in such stupid ways as i read above..., cause in those pilots minds, they are not moving until receiving a all clear from those guys out there.
if they didnt get it and they moved, it was an honest mistake by the crew.
if they got the all clear and they moved and hit the guy, it was an honest mistake the ground personnel.
either way its a mistake that happened.
let the investigation clear it out and dont hate the klm game, cause it's a solid game!
now suck it:D

I was told by a trusted ( trustable ) source the crew finished de-icing, and went beyond the safety line(s) so the AC could depart. As it did, unfortunately turning right too quickly or too sharply hitting the truck with the rear stabilo.

I found below references made / distributed by ATCBox member Curly

http://i89.photobucket.com/albums/k2...Picture006.jpg

http://i89.photobucket.com/albums/k2...Picture005.jpg

http://i89.photobucket.com/albums/k2...0/DSC_5224.jpg

Lots of talk about cones, trucks, people etc. being placed in front of the aircraft whilst de icing takes place. Would it not be simpler to place chocks under the nosewheel which are only removed by the supervisor once all vehicles are clear? That way, even if the crew start to move too soon, they won't be going too far!

How about doing away with trucks altogether, and have a fixed gantry under which every aircraft passed as part of the taxy. Since there's a mandated maximum width of aircraft, then having a gantry wider than this with downward facing sprinklers below it would enable aircraft to be fully de-iced both wings at a time without fear of missing a wing or missing a section. Traffic lights on the gantry would allow control. Would eventually be cheaper than vehicles as well, and would be yet another aide-memoire for those trying to take off from the taxyway too.

Some 20 years ago, unsure where the de-ice truck was, the skipper asked me to go out in the cabin to visually check (looking out of the windows) if I could see it.

The brain is an amazing thing, with almost unlimited powers.......if used

Even better.............

http://www.energysolutionscenter.org...ft_deicing.pdf

Not a bad idea, but I can't just hear it now
"Keptin, I'm givvin her all she's got, but she just won't move!"

Full Power Taxi

Might give you a clue though!

Actually, rolling over a set of chocks is pretty easy. :ouch: Takes nothing like full power ...

You have to be joking. This sounds like the idea of a sixth-former as a college project.

I'm not going to even begin to go into the reasons of why it is a bad idea, but my God is it a bad idea.

Please do.

Because you infra red system has absolutey no anti icing properties. Once the aircraft is towed out of your bay, it will ice up again almost immediately..:E