Breiz From France, joined Mar 2005, 1808 posts, RR: 2 Posted (7 years 10 months 2 weeks 7 hours ago) and read 7019 times:
According to the FAA, Air Canada A319 C-GBHR was damaged on July 7th while standing at the gate.
The blade of a concrete cutting machine came loose, stuck the wing of the A319 and ended its trajectory embedded in a luggage loader belonging to United.
Fortunately, nobody was hurt.
Starlionblue From Hong Kong, joined Feb 2004, 15870 posts, RR: 66 Reply 3, posted (7 years 10 months 2 weeks 6 hours ago) and read 6799 times:
Quoting Glidepath73 (Reply 2): My goodness, that could have been really dangerous for pax and the a/c itself as well. Imagine that blade struck a fuel pipe while refueling the a/c.
Personally I want a pic of the Captain's face when he found out.
"There are no stupid questions, but there are a lot of inquisitive idiots." - from Citadel by John Ringo
MSYtristar From United States of America, joined Aug 2005, 6242 posts, RR: 51 Reply 4, posted (7 years 10 months 2 weeks 6 hours ago) and read 6772 times:
I don't know how the blade come lose :|
Luckely the people at the airport don't thought it was an bomb.
Or it could be an much worser accident if they thought that.
NASCARAirforce From United States of America, joined Feb 2005, 3081 posts, RR: 5 Reply 5, posted (7 years 10 months 2 weeks 5 hours ago) and read 6654 times:
Quoting MSYtristar (Reply 4): I don't know how the blade come lose :|
Ummm, the guy didn't tighten it.
To be honest, I used to work for a company that did concrete cutting and I know what kind of blades they are talking about. These are giant round blades. They often aren't attached to the rest of the machine when you get there and you have to attach them yourself and tighten them. Obviously, the cutter operator didn't load the blade on right or tighten it down properly.
Cwapilot From United States of America, joined May 2000, 1166 posts, RR: 20 Reply 6, posted (7 years 10 months 2 weeks 5 hours ago) and read 6547 times:
"Luckely the people at the airport don't thought it was an bomb.
Or it could be an much worser accident if they thought that."
WTF are you talking about? Speaking of trajectories, from concrete cutter blade to bomb is certainly an interesting one...
Southside Irish...our two teams are the White Sox and whoever plays the Cubs!
PiedmontINT From United States of America, joined Jul 2005, 376 posts, RR: 0 Reply 8, posted (7 years 10 months 1 week 6 days 17 hours ago) and read 4810 times:
If it was one of those large concrete cutters such as those used on highways, the blade is about 12" and spinning at over 4000 rpm.. if one of those flew off the damage could be disasterous. This huge fast spinning blade striking a luggage cart would most like destroy the piece of luggage it hit (if there were any on it) and cause its contents to fly everywhere, most likely in a exploding fashion. Im sure if the driver of the cart heard one of these things hit his cart, I could see why it could sound like a small bomb went off
EPCOT From United States of America, joined Aug 2004, 24 posts, RR: 0 Reply 9, posted (7 years 10 months 1 week 6 days 12 hours ago) and read 2734 times:
This type of work in the vicinity of parked aircraft is usually performed at night. The aircraft would have been empty, there would not have been any airline ramp workers in the vicinity, etc. The only personnel in the vicinity would usually be the contractor's personnel performing the work. We use concrete cutters nightly at IAD to perform pavement repairs or other construction work. It is never performed in the vicinity of aircraft during live flight operations. In fact, the closest they would be to a parked aircraft would normally be the vehicle service road adjacent to the gate. If the work is to be performed on the gate area, we would coordinate with the airline to have that gate empty. However, it is certainly possible that the blade traveled from an adjacent area such as a service road to strike the aircraft. As previously pointed out, you need to check your equipment and constantly think SAFETY SAFETY SAFETY. When you don't, it comes back to bite you sooner or later.
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