US airport worker dies after being sucked into plane engine

Staff member 'ingested' into engine, safety board says

A Delta Airlines Airbus A330-200 aircraft landing at London Heathrow Airport. Getty

An airport worker in the US state of Texas was killed after being sucked into a passenger plane engine, officials said on Sunday.

The Delta plane, an Airbus A319, had arrived in San Antonio from Los Angeles on Friday night and was taxiing to the gate with one engine on “when a worker was ingested into that engine”, the National Transportation Safety Board told AFP.

“The NTSB is continuing to gather information about the event,” it said on Sunday.

The worker was employed by Unifi Aviation, a ground crew operations firm contracted by airline giants, according to local media.

Delta told San Antonio broadcaster KENS 5 that the company was “deeply saddened” by Friday night's events and that it is “co-operating with authorities as they begin their investigation”.

Unifi Aviation told the broadcaster the incident was “a tragic accident”.

“From our initial investigation, this incident was unrelated to Unifi's operational processes, safety procedures and policies,” the company said.

On Wednesday, regional carrier Piedmont Airlines was fined $15,625 by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, another regulatory body, for the death of a ground crew worker last year in a similar incident.

“Proper training and enforcement of safety procedures could have prevented this tragedy,” an OSHA official said.

Piedmont is a subsidiary of carrier American Airlines.