That's gotta hurt!

[compuwiz1]

Mechanic sucked into jet engine

Monday, January 16, 2006; Posted: 5:55 p.m. EST (22:55 GMT)

(CNN) -- A mechanic standing near a Boeing 737 at El Paso International Airport in Texas was sucked into one of the engines and killed Monday, officials said.

Continental Airlines Flight 1515 was preparing to take off for Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston when "a maintenance-related engine run-up of the right-hand engine" was carried out, said Roland Herwig, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration's southwest region in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

"Someone on the ground was sucked into the engine," he said.

In a written statement, Continental Chairman and CEO Larry Kellner said the person killed was a mechanic who worked for one of the airline's suppliers.

"My fellow coworkers and I extend our heartfelt sympathies to the family and friends of the mechanic involved in this tragic event," Kellner said.

The 737-500 was carrying 114 passengers and five crew members at the time of the accident, he said.

"Continental is coordinating assistance for passengers who need help dealing with this tragedy," Kellner said. "Continental's Employee Assistance Program team is also flying to El Paso to meet with employees."

He said the incident occurred during a maintenance check in preparation for the plane's departure.

A spokeswoman for Boeing said Monday's incident is not the first such accident. "It doesn't happen very often," spokeswoman Liz Verdier said. "It has happened in the past."

Either way, she said, the responsibility lies with Continental: "The airlines are responsible for their safety procedures."

The National Transportation Safety Board has sent a team of investigators from its office in Denver, Colorado, Herwig said.
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Damn! I've never heard of that happening. I wonder what it looked like coming out of the other end of the engine?

RIP

 

[AragornTK]

I have a freind who was a mechanic for US Air, he said that actually happened at an alarmingly high rate (not above .1%, but more than you would think) he said most people survive it though somehow and get away broken bones and nothing missing

apparently those helmets they wear are VERY strong, he also told me that the jets have those spirals on the jet turbine so you can tell if it's spinning (they can't hear well with those head phones on) I wonder if he just wasn't paying attention?

RIP

 

[judasmachine]

Originally posted by: AragornTK
I have a freind who was a mechanic for US Air, he said that actually happened at an alarmingly high rate (not above .1%, but more than you would think) he said most people survive it though somehow and get away broken bones and nothing missing

apparently those helmets they wear are VERY strong, he also told me that the jets have those spirals on the jet turbine so you can tell if it's spinning (they can't hear well with those head phones on) I wonder if he just wasn't paying attention?

RIP

Yeah there was video of that happening to a mechanic on an aircraft carrier a year or two ago, that was floating around the internet. The man lived, apparently those helmets are harder than the fan blades.

 

[Genx87]

The guy on the aircraft carrier got snagged on something inside the intake and kept him from becoming minced meat.

I question whether many people survive going through a commercial airliner turbine due to the size difference of the engines.

Hard helmet or not, those blades are spinning at about 30,000 rpm. The shear momentum alone will still cut you up even if the helmet does break a couple of the fan blade. Remember the spinning intake fan you see is only the first in a series of blades within the engine that are designed to compress the air.

 

[judasmachine]

I stand corrected, I have no experiance with such things.

 

[wirelessenabled]

The front blade is spinning nowhere near 30,000 rpm. The diameter of a 757 engine, the Pratt & Whitney PW2000 is just over 7 ft.

Calculate the speed at the tips of the fan at 30,000 rpm. No way it would hold together. Not to mention that efficiency goes way down once the blades go transonic (speed of sound). I would think that the front blade of a 757 is turning no more than about 3,000 rpm at full power. Still plenty fast enough to chop you up.

On these new high bypass jet engines the front blade is essentially a ducted fan, or you could say a ducted turbo prop. About 6 times as much air is pushed by this fan as goes through the power core.

 

[trenchfoot]

my personal experience comes from doing maintenance work on f-15's belonging to the hawaii ANG.

on the intake side, i used to watch jet engines being run up in the "hush house" because it was a thrill being so close to all that raw power that those engines produced. i remember opening the door from the control room to the room that an engine running in and the suction i felt from being about 30 ft. away in a closed but vented room was awesome. my intitial reaction was fright before i knew that nothing was actually going to happen to me. pretty awesome stuff.

on the exhaust side, i remember being on the wing of an f-15 extracting stuck screws from a panel that needed to be removed right away for repairs so the bird wouldn't miss it's sortie that morning. well, the '15 that was parked right next to the bird i was working on was pre-flighted and spooling. i was so intent on getting my job done, i ignored the fact that when that '15 leaves its slot the blast from the exhaust would be pointing right at me. i kept working until the ac started taxi'ing out of its slot, and then the wing i was working on started to bounce me up and down like a yo-yo. it was then that i realized the predicament i was in, looked around quickie-quickie and crawled over to the nearest vertical stab so i could use it as a shield and also as something to hang on to so i wouldn't get blown right off of the bird. i hung on for what seemed like an eternity wondering just how bad things were going to get. needless to say, the blast was huh-huh-huh-hot and full of thrust and not very easy to breath in. the bird i was on started to yaw in place and was still doing its little bouncie dance when the mini-hurricane i was in finally started to subside as the taxi-bird got further and further away from me. what a rush. pucker factor went ballistic for awhile. the crew chief of the ac that taxi'ed out saw me sit up from my hiding place and executed a perfect 10 point jaw drop when he realized what i just went through. needless to say we spent a long time discussing what went wrong.

jet engines are really deceptive in the sense that unless you get within "stupid" distance of them they seem pretty harmless. and the more you work around them while they're running the easier it is to forget just how dangerous they really are.

 

[Harvey]

Originally posted by: compuwiz1
That's gotta hurt!

Not for long, but it gives you a whole new respect for the concept when someone says "That sucks!"