Alabama airline worker sucked into plane engine was warned to stay back: NTSB

A National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigation of a New Year’s Eve incident in which a ground worker was killed in Alabama after being sucked into the engine of a plane found that she had been warned to stay back. 

The worker was sucked into the engine of an Embraer 170 plane with 63 passengers onboard at Montgomery Regional Airport on a Piedmont Airlines—a subsidiary of American Airlines Group, the NTSB said. The victim was identified as Courtney Edwards, 34, a mother of three.

The preliminary report said the pilots of the airplane had decided to leave the airplane running for two minutes at the gate to allow it to cool down after an auxiliary power unit was not working. 

One of the pilots even opened the cockpit window to warn the ground workers that the engines would remain on for some time. 

"Immediately thereafter, he saw a warning light illuminate and the airplane shook violently followed by the immediate automatic shutdown of the number 1 [left] engine," the report says. "Unsure of what had occurred, he extinguished the emergency lights and shut off both batteries before leaving the flight deck to investigate." 

A surveillance video shows Edward "walking along the leading edge of the left-wing and directly in front of the number one engine" before she was "subsequently pulled off her feet and into the operating engine."

The investigation found that just before the plane’s arrival, the ramp agents warned workers that the “engines would remain running until ground power was connected."

"It was also discussed that the airplane should not be approached, and the diamond of safety cones should not be set until the engines were off, spooled down, and the airplane’s rotating beacon light had been extinguished by the flight crew," the report continues.