https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/21/us/southwest-collision-wing-clipped/index.html

I was in a "whoops" once in Jackson Hole, the only passenger left on our inbound 737-300 from Denver (or it might have been an airbus, this happened 20 years ago).  The ground crew when trying to put their motorized baggage retriever against the aircraft missed by a country mile by hitting the accelerator instead of the brakes, and they rammed the aircraft with me trying to deplane, hitting the fuse hard enough to knock the plane to its port side, and I fell into the row of seats on the port side hitting my hip hard on the armrest.

The remaining flight attendants looked at me, I looked at them, and we decided to get the heck off the airplane that the pilots had already left.

The flight attendants were also the gate agents and had to deal with a throng of angry pax who were told our jet, which was to go back with them to Denver, had its flight cancelled.

I had to wait for my colleague, as team lead I got there first, rented our car, then waited for his Delta puddle jumper to come in from Salt Lake.  We were very good friends too, as I was with the client who had invited me to teach at all three of their Jackson Hole Best Westerns after I taught their sister property in Capitol Reef Utah.  In fact their chief controller, Trec Tisdale, mailed me a stuffed buffalo for my newborn daughter, he got my address months earlier when I was helping teach his crew at Capitol Reef.

Anyway, after the crowds stopped hassling the Gate Agent, I went over to reassure them they did the right thing.  They told me the captain and first officer were going to fly the aircraft alone back to Denver, on Oxygen, just in case the fuse was compromised by the accident.

A week later, flying home, the gate agents recognized me as I walked up to their check in desk, and I started to rub my neck, saying "I must have gotten whiplash from the accident, who do I contact for compensation?".......   They looked at me a second, and remembering me well they said "Ohhhh John, that joke was sooooo baaaad"

Bad to the bone, I am, lol

Some time later I tried to look up this accident in the NTSB logs but it never appeared, even though it was a serious ground accident, United handled it internally since I was not hurt nor the crew.

John

Crashville, eh? And here I thought I only heard that one in trucking.

WOW! Typical media over-dramatisation in that report - "the S in Southwest RIPPED OFF THE WING!!"  also the planes returned to the gates on their own?? What, no tugs? 

2 hours ago, HighBypass said:

WOW! Typical media over-dramatisation in that report - "the S in Southwest RIPPED OFF THE WING!!"  also the planes returned to the gates on their own?? What, no tugs? 

Yup, typical awful reporting from writers who use lazy tropes and terrible sentence construction, rather than doing proper research. Amongst the literary brilliance I've read concerning this incident...

'they collided on the tarmac' Really? Nashville International Airport has tarmac ramps and taxiways rather than concrete ones like every other airport?

Bad as the above is, it is trumped by this display of grammatical brilliance:

'the winglet of Southwest Flight 1555, which had been bound for St. Louis, “came into contact” with the winglet of Southwest Flight 4580, which had been scheduled to fly to Atlanta.'

And here's me thinking that the entire airframe of both aeroplanes would be departing, but apparently it was only the winglets which were going to St Louis and Atlanta.

But, whilst we're on the subject of clumsy ramp ops, I've got a better damage story which occurred at Manchester a couple of weeks ago (whilst I was off on holiday in Spain)...

A Thomas Cook A330-200 was being pushed back off the ramp from Stand 31, when the pilot reported to the headset person that he had a fault with his harness and wished to be pulled back onto the stand to sort it out (not sure why he wouldn't just do that when it was at the TRP, nor why he hadn't sorted it before pushing out anyway, but who knows?). Anyway, they pull him back onto stand and the air bridge reconnects, but the pilot apparently took the brake off, even though he'd been told to apply it, nor was the aircraft chocked (which it should have been), so when some numb nuts on the ramp decided to disconnect the towbar even though there were no chocks on and the air bridge was still extended, presumably and follishly assuming the brakes were on (you should never do that, which is why you leave at least the nose wheel chocks on until you see that bridge retract), the aircraft rolled backwards, and since by that time the cabin door had been opened, the cabin door got torn off its hinges by the umbillical frame of the air bridge as the aeroplane rolled backwards. Ooops!

Cautionary tale there in this one by the way for anyone who flies aeroplanes: If something out of the ordinary happens, be super-careful to ensure you go 'belt and braces' with everything, because an out of the ordinary situation has the potential to be the catalyst for the mother of all screw ups.

Now, not including the cost of fitting a new door, taking the aircraft out of service, repair to the surrounding aircraft skin, doing a spectro scan of the metal to see if it is damaged, possible damage to the probes, repainting, etc, etc, just the door alone costs 430,000 quid. So I reckon the total repair bill would be quite a few million quid and all because the rampies and the flight deck crew did something a bit lax. I dunno, I leave the place for two weeks to have a holiday and it turns into numpty central whilst I'm gone lol.

Edited July 26, 20196 yr by Chock

Aww I bet he’s being spoken about in the office..

who’s to blame thought, no chock or no brake..both made errors. I’d just point at the air gate...————> itwazim... 

1 hour ago, MaDDogz said:

Aww I bet he’s being spoken about in the office..

who’s to blame thought, no chock or no brake..both made errors. I’d just point at the air gate...————> itwazim... 

Yeah, it was interesting to say the least, in fact, when I went back to work a week or so ago, I was on the way in through security and I jokingly said to a colleague who was also starting his shift: 'So what fun have I missed?' and he said, 'Well, last night Mark was taken off the ramp in an ambulance with a suspected heart attack (turns out he was okay), and two days before that, we had an A330 have its door ripped off!' Needless to say I was a bit like: '****, I miss everything!'

Whenever there is any incident like that, the entire ramp crew get automatically suspended pending an investigation (some of them are back in work now). One girl off that crew has apparently handed in her notice, although not I suspect because of this incident, but that might turn out to be quite timely on her part because she was on the headset and was the one who  told the pilot to apply his brakes and you have to say that it might be a case of jumping before you are pushed given the seriousness of the incident in monetary terms. Obviously there is insurance for such matters, but that is a lot of money we're talking about.

Dunno about the flight crew, but one suspects a similar thing might have occurred (i.e. suspension) pending an investigation. I actually said to someone that they could easily confirm whether she did in fact tell the pilot to put the brakes on by examining the CVR, as any responses from the pilot in relation to the tow back on stand would be picked up on that. But whether she in fact did or did not, at the end of the day, I think it is a case of both the ramp crew and the flight crew both being at fault, because if you chock an aeroplane, it ain't going anywhere, and likewise if you stick the brakes on.

Ironically, that incident and the (alleged) lack of chocking discipline on the part of the ramp crew is one of my issues with some people on the ramp, including some whom I have worked with, but not anyone whom I'm regularly teamed up with because we make a point of doing it right. However, sometimes you work with others who are not part of your regular team and when doing this, I've seen more than one person take the chocks off the nose before the air bridge is off the aeroplane. It always makes me cringe when I witness anyone doing stupid stuff like that. I have on occasion stopped people from removing those chocks when they've gone to do it before I've see the air bridge was clear.

It's not as if this is a hard concept to grasp, the bridge has an audible siren and a bell which rings when it moves, so you just take that as your cue to remove the chocks having visually confirmed the bridge in motion, so I dunno why some people fail to do that and conversely, literally the first thing you do when a plane comes on stand, after a tow on, is go to the nose and give a clenched fist sign to the crew (brakes on) and see them return the gesture to confirm this, and then immediately stick the chocks on the nose. Now to be fair, with my crew working at night, we do have a lot more experience with towing than most people on days because we usually have to tow a few aircraft off to remote stands most nights, and this incident was one which occurred in the daytime where this is rarely the case, but even so, I've got to be honest and say that I've not got much sympathy for the ground crew on that incident, because if they were doing it right, even if the pilot had not applied the brakes, as we suspect was the case, that accident would still not have occurred.

Generally speaking, I quite often see people with poor chocking discipline on pushbacks, where they don't keep the chock on the nose wheel until the last moment, as you should. I would have thought it should be obvious enough that this is desirable for your own personal protection if nothing else when you are the one who is disconnecting the towbar from an aeroplane which is at that point cranking its engines.

Having said that, it's not unknown for flight deck crews to be stupid with the brakes and not listen to the pushback headset person properly. A few weeks ago two of my colleagues (who I know do things right every time) had a towbar's head completely rip off, with all the shear pins going with a right bang as they towed forward a little to the tug release point, and I know that was because the crew had put the parking brake on off the pushback before being told the maneuver was complete over the headset and that they could now set the parking brake, instead of assuming that because the aeroplane had stopped moving backwards, the pushback was complete.

As they say: aviation itself is not inherently dangerous, but it is very unforgiving of mistakes.

Edited July 26, 20196 yr by Chock

Ouch! Whole crew suspended. ‘ ere Dave, I need next Tuesday off, can you bugger something up Monday night? Lol

i take it that’s with pay?

just like my place of work in a mechanical workshop, when the drivers are quiet, they are asked to help in the workshop....help they don’t. They do it all wrong, in a way nobody else does it, just making more work than there was to begin with!

thanks for the insight Alan, very interesting read.

1 hour ago, MaDDogz said:

like my place of work in a mechanical workshop, when the drivers are quiet, they are asked to help in the workshop....help they don’t. They do it all wrong, in a way nobody else does it, just making more work than there was to begin with!

Funnily enough, I got asked to help in the bag hall once (that's the place where they scan the luggage with a bar code scanner as it comes down a chute onto a carousel after its been dropped down the chute from the check in desks, and thence to load it into the ULDs or onto a baggage cart, ready to take out to the aeroplanes to be loaded). And I was all 'aaw no, do I have to?' because I hated the idea of doing it, even for a second (I do my  job because I want to work on aeroplanes, not to do that boring stuff) but, not to be awkward, I did go there and pitch in because they asked me to, despite me saying that: 'I hope you are all aware that I've never been shown any of that stuff and I'm sure I'll screw it up'.

Anyway, there is that good old technique, which anyone who has ever worked anywhere will know, and that is, if you get - as we Brits say - 'asked to make a brew', i.e. make some tea or coffee for people, the smart thing to do, is make it so awful, that nobody will ever ask you to do it again lol. Similarly, a big thing with our jobs is that you are not supposed to use equipment on which you have not been fully trained. Now, I got shown the BRS (Baggage Reclamation System) and how those guys use it, and the bar scanner stuff, in an 'explanation' which lasted all of about three seconds, from some guy and even that I could barely hear because of all the clanking and generator noises going on in the bag hall. So this was hardly 'having been trained on the equipment'. As a result, I spectacularly screwed it up and ended up having to reload a trailer because the stuff I was scanning into the BRS wasn't registering properly (because nobody explained one of its finer points to me). I know how that works now, but at the time, I didn't because I had literally never used it before. However, the plus point of all that was that I have never been asked to work in there ever again, which, again as we Brits say: 'is a right result'.

Which funnily enough, reminds me of another hilarious aviation mishap (one where an entire flight of six RAF aeroplanes were forced to ditch in the ocean and were thus completely destroyed) as a result of someone being asked to work on stuff they were not trained on. This happened to a guy I know who was in the RAF years ago. As he related it to me, he was asked by some radar controller to 'mind this station for a bit' whilst the radar operator sneaked off somewhere (presumably for something to eat, or a cigarette or something). Now despite my friend's protestations that he did not know anything about either the radar, or the radio equipment related to its use and that he didn't think it was a good idea to leave him in charge, the radar guy said, 'Oh you'll be alright, I won't be long, don't worry, you won't have to do anything' and he promptly sneaked off. 

Whilst the radar guy was gone, a flight of six aeroplanes (I think they were Gloster Meteors, but I could be wrong about that) called him up asking for vectors to return to base as they were running low on fuel. Now of course my friend tried to do his best to help them, but not knowing how any of the stuff worked, he could not properly assist them and I think he actually gave them an incorrect heading to fly, and as a result all six aeroplanes had to ditch in the sea, with apparently all the crews rescued fortunately, but obviously, all the aircraft sank and were totally written off charge. I dunno what happened to the radar guy who sneaked off somewhere, but I can imagine it involved more than a bit of a stern talking to considering what happened, my friend of course did not get any of the blame for it, since he had protested at being put in that position and had at least tried to do his best to help, so he actually thinks it is quite funny given that nobody was actually harmed.

Anyway, when he told me this, what I did a few years ago as a joke for his birthday, was to get him a Order Pour le Mérite (aka The Blue Max) and present it to him at his party, which he thought was hilarious. As you probably know, that medal was originally awarded to airmen who managed to down five British aeroplanes and so he, having polished off six of them, albeit by accident, most assuredly qualified for it! There's not many people who can claim to have become a Luftwaffe Ace whilst serving in the RAF, is there? 🤣

Edited July 26, 20196 yr by Chock

A most excellent and informative read, Alan! Such chocking behaviour indeed! 

HOW much for an A330 cabin door?? Holy.... 

Good story Alan, it is a story about the Peter principal being applied unfairly, someone being unintentionally set up to fail.  But quite possibly, the ditching saved their lives, had they run out of fuel over land and not being close enough to an Aerodrome...

One of my favorite books of close encounters with accidents was the self written, self titled book Rickenbacker - An Autobiography

He escaped many times, not only in his Spad, but also in a DC3 once and a ditching.  He also discusses being careful with requesting pain medicine, especially opiates, unless you are ready to depart this earth, in which he says in one way or another, accepting such mercy at that time is fine.

One of the things he did was change the spelling of his name to make it less "German".  My grandparents did the same thing, changing the pronunciation of my last name to make it less "Italian" after they came here from Italy.  Ha ha, I was so mocked when I had to work on a business systems implementation for Holiday Inn and Novell in 1995 in Bologna Italy.  My students insisted my name was not Italian, and they spoke English, being hoteliers, well enough that they could kid me about it, such as when they took me out to dinner near the University they attended that Bologna is famous for.  They also harassed me that I wanted to go to Venice instead of Florence, because Italians consider Florence their Heart and Venice just a plumbing problem, lol.  

But I love the beauty of Venice, so I went there twice, on my two weekends off, a short two hour ride from Bologna, maybe less.  "Alora" was their fav phrase I heard, kind of like "whatever will be will be".  They kept teasing me about being "non" Italian, so I finally tore a page out of their hotel phonebook in my hotel room, and circled the one hundred or so Cillis names, and the two hundred or so Cilli names, which I told them was the plural of Cillis (a family joke).

Truth is they were right.  No one knows what happened before, but around 1000 or so my family name seemed to come into existence in Spain, possibly of Islamic/Christian intermarriage.  Then my forebears marched north into France, then conquered England during the Normon conquest, which also allowed me to establish that one of my forbears was a knight, making me 1 pct royalty and the rest a mongrel.  Better than the other way around, because royals and leaders have it tough.

I learned that after the discovery of the America's, my Spanish forebears went to Argentina, and intermarried there with the Native Americans.  I learned this after marrying my Spanish/Mexican Native wife, which means as DNA proves, I married a distant cousin, way distant.

My Italian forebears moved from Argentina back to Italy sometime between dawn of the industrial era and American Independence.  They stayed there until WW1 broke out, then fled Europe to avoid the pending conflagration that that war was, one of the worst if you compare the population there vs. the population lost, even over WWII maybe, but I am not good with war stats.

My father, who fought in Korea, was for soldiers forced to serve, but against war, still he worked to strengthen our Navy after Cuba went Russian as a civilian, knowing the best offense is a strong national defense.  I feel his ideas win out for all countries that have learned this, poor Russia being hit the hardest with the Napoleonic and German invasions and the near Sino-Soviet conflict of the late 60's-early 70's caused by Vietnam.

I think that is why having a strong China Navy is better for the US, and not worse, mainly because of piracy prominent in the region, which other countries may realize soon.

I am neither for or against War, I only realize we learn about each other from it, and it is better to learn from our enemies to get to know them better, in the process sometimes friendships can blossom.

John