US investigators believe a ramp agent was seriously injured by jet blast from a parked Airbus A319 after misinterpreting signals from the aircraft’s marshaller at Santa Barbara airport.
The United Airlines aircraft had arrived from San Francisco on 18 July last year but its crew received several electrical fault indications while taxiing in.
These faults, as the aircraft approached the gate, included an auxiliary power unit generator fault.
The captain opted to prioritise parking guidance and the aircraft taxied into gate 2. After the marshaller signalled the crew to stop, a support agent chocked the nose-gear.
Three other personnel – two wing-walkers, one each side, and the lead ramp agent on the right – were handling the aircraft’s arrival.
When the marshaller signalled to the crew that the aircraft was chocked, and lowered his hands, the left wing-walker “appeared to misinterpret” the gesture, says the National Transportation Safety Board.
Carrying main-gear chocks, he moved behind the left-hand engine, which was still running as the crew dealt with multiple additional fault messages, including intermittent right-hand engine fire warnings.
He was caught in the jet blast from the engine and thrown to the ground, sustaining multiple injuries. The wing-walker, who survived the incident, was taken to an emergency response vehicle.
“The ramp lead indicated that the employee was relatively new and may have misinterpreted marshalling procedures, potentially confusing the procedures with those used by other carriers operating at [Santa Barbara],” says the inquiry.
It says the anti-collision beacon on the A319 had remained illuminated.
Although the safety board identifies the airframe as N822UA, and lists it with CFM International CFM56 engines, the US FAA records the twinjet as having International Aero Engines V2500s.
Standard procedure requires wing-walkers to wait for an all-clear signal from the marshaller before approaching the aircraft. According to the inquiry, one of the other agents attempted unsuccessfully to radio the wing-walker to warn him to stop.
United Airlines subsequently issued a safety reminder, stressing that ground personnel should wait for clear signals from the marshaller, and not approach the aircraft if in doubt.
