An airport worker has died after being sucked into a Delta passenger plane’s engine.
A worker at a Texas airport has been killed after being sucked into a jet engine on Friday.
The Delta flight arrived in San Antonio, Texas, from Los Angeles on Friday night. The plane had one engine on as it was taxiing to the gate “when a worker was ingested into that engine,” the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said.
“The NTSB is continuing to gather information about the event,” it said.
The NTSB also said in a statement that the worker died at around 10:25pm on Friday.
The worker was employed by Unifi Aviation, a company Delta contracts with for ground crew operations.
Unifi said in a statement that it was “deeply saddened by the loss of the employee,” but made a point to say that the investigation had shown the worker’s death was “unrelated to Unifi’s operational processed, safety procedures and policies.”
Unifi’s statement also said, “Our hearts go out to the family of the deceased, and we remain focused on supporting our employees on the ground and ensuring they are being taken care of during this time… Out of respect for the deceased, we will not be sharing any additional information” at this time.
San Antonio’s firefighters and police were the first to respond to the worker’s death on Friday night.
The NTSB has since joined the investigation into the incident and may be releasing a preliminary report with more details in the coming days.
