Premium on Safety - Issue 46, 2022 - 4

SAFETY SPOTLIGHT
PILOTS SPEND THE MAJORITY OF THEIR BRAIN
POWER ON FLIGHT PLANNING, EVALUATING
AND MITIGATING FLIGHT RISKS AND
PREPARING FOR IN-FLIGHT EMERGENCIES.
Taxiing into the ramp area, it is easy to feel the
relief that another flight is completed safely.
Yet the reality is that your safe home base is
exactly where aircraft damage and personal
injury often occur.
Just last week, I witnessed a ramp worker
slicing his head open on a Gulfstream pitot
tube as he stood up too quickly after attaching
a tow bar to the plane. Thankfully, his injury
was treated promptly at the ER with a bit of
cleanup and medical superglue. He was lucky.
Some incidents aren't so easily remedied.
Since the NTSB doesn't investigate all ramp
incidents, obtaining accurate statistics
on ramp safety is challenging. I doubt the
injury I witnessed last week made it into
any database. After all, the NTSB definition
of an accident is an occurrence associated
with the operation of an aircraft from the
time people board with the intention of flight
until they disembark and in which there is
death, serious injury, or substantial damage
to an aircraft. This incident doesn't meet any
of those criteria. Still, ramp safety is crucial
from a human and financial standpoint.
Using NTSB data AOPA's Air Safety Institute
(ASI) calculated that, " Over the 10-year period
that ended in 2008, 350 aircraft accidents
occurred in the ramp area. While only a small
percentage of these accidents proved fatal,
more than 80 percent caused substantial
damage to other aircraft and property on
the ground. " Of course, this is only part of
the picture. ASI's calculations do not include
incidents that cause damage totaling less
than " substantial. " Injuries that aren't defined
as serious or fatal aren't included, either.
To get a slightly fuller picture, the Flight
Safety Foundation conducted a study using
International Airline Transport Association
data to estimate that " 27,000 ramp accidents
and incidents-one per 1,000 departures-
occur worldwide every year, and about
243,000 people are injured. The injury rate is
nine per 1,000 departures. "
How are most ramp incidents happening?
What can we do to avoid them? I've broken
them down into three major categories:
I'll start with the most catastrophic of these
incidents: people hitting airplanes. Accidents
where people walk into running propellers or are
killed in a jet engine intake are absolutely horrific.
There's no other way to say it. There are too many
stories of people getting out of a still-running
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In 2013, a British Airways flight taxiing at Tambo
International Airport in South Africa, made a wrong turn
and collided with a building. The probable cause of the
accident was cited as: " The loss of situational awareness
caused the crew to taxi straight ahead on the wrong
path, crossing the intersection/junction of Bravo and Mike
instead of following Bravo where it turns off to the right and
leads to the Category 2 holding point. Following aircraft
stand taxilane Mike; they collided with a building on the
right-hand side of Mike. "
Data estimates that 27,000 ramp
accidents and incidents-one
per 1,000 departures-occur
worldwide every year, and about
243,000 people are injured. That's
nine injuries per 1,000 departures.
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