Runway worker dies at US airport after being sucked into plane turbine

The US transportation regulator said on Sunday that it is investigating an incident in which an airport worker in the southern state of Texas died after being sucked by the engine of a passenger plane.

A Delta airline flight had arrived on Friday in the city of San Antonio, Texas, from Los Angeles and he was heading to the boarding gate with an engine running “when a worker was sucked into that engine,” the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) told AFP in a statement.

“The NTSB continues to collect information on the incident,” he said.

The worker was an employee of Unifi Aviation, a company hired by the airline giant for its ground operationsaccording to local media.

Delta spokesmen told San Antonio radio station KENS 5 that the company is “cooperating with authorities as they begin their investigation.”

For its part, Unifi Aviation stated that the incident was “a tragic accident” outside the usual procedures of its activity and staff responsibility.

On Wednesday, the regional airline Piedmont Airlines – a subsidiary of American Airlines – was fined $15,625 by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) – another regulatory body – for the death of a ground crew worker last year in a similar incident.