Piedmont Airlines, an American Airlines subsidiary, is being fined $15,625 after their employee Courtney Edwards was sucked into a plane engine on December 31, 2022, leading to her death. The citation comes after the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) authorities investigated the horrific incident that took place at the Montgomery Regional Airport in Alabama.
34-year-old Courtney, who worked as a ground agent for the airlines, was "on-ramp" when the American Airlines Flight 3408, an Embraer E175, landed. Upon landing, the captain was in the process of shutting down the engines when he was alerted that the plane's front cargo door was opened.
According to the initial reports by the National Transport Safety Board (NTSB), just as the co-pilot warned the ground crew of the running engine, the 34-year-old employee was "ingested" into the engine.
The OSHA investigation found the airline guilty of failing to provide "a place of employment which were free from recognized hazards that were causing or likely to cause death or serious physical harm to employees that were exposed to ingestion and jet blast hazards"
The decision was supported by the Communications Workers of America (CWA), a workers union that the 34-year-old was a part of, which stated that in the likely chance that the American Airlines subsidiary was to contest the decision, they (CWA) would continue to fight for Edwards.
The NTSB report specifically noted that Edwards went close to the engine despite multiple warnings to stay back as the aircraft was shutting down. Describing the incident from the flight deck, the report notes that the pilots saw a warning light flash, following which the plane jerked violently, and then engine number 1 automatically shut dow
The report adds that there is video evidence to show the 34-year-old American Airlines employee walking in front of the engine to the left of the plane before she was "pulled off her feet and into the operating engine."
Edwards' peers seem to be of the opinion that she did not keep a safe distance until the airplane's rotating beacon light shut off," something that was discussed earlier.
The NTSB report states that at the time of the accident, the rotating beacon was illuminated. It cites the American Eagle Ground Operations Manual, which tells workers to not approach the front of a running jet engine and to maintain a safe distance of 15 feet from what is called the "ingestion zone."