Worst mishap at an FBO

[Learsforsale]

In the spirit of "Worst FBO thread" what was the worst mishap that you have witnessed or heard about at an FBO. For every good ramp agent there is a myriad of incompetent ones, I should know I worked with most of them.

We had one particularly "quarky" ramp agent that was not all there up stairs. One day he was hunting for tips out front, meaning waiting for cars to pull up so he could off load luggage meanwhile we are all getting manhandled by all the planes coming in. So he loads up all the luggage onto a cart and makes off toward the ramp. To get to the ramp you have to swipe your badge and enter a code. Somehow after opening the door he reached back and grabs the wrong baggage cart (there were several carts fully loaded right by the door). He meets the pilot by the plane and starts loading the luggage. By the time the mistake is realized the plane has already departed and is on its way to Columbia (not the city, the country) Needless to say, the passengers were not happy.

 

[Vector4fun]

Story I heard second had from a former co-worker:

The guy who took over ramp services after I left waved a Howard 250, (executive Lockheed Lodestar) onto the grass for parking because the asphalt ramp was full. Lockeed sinks in to the axles. "Not to worry" says the intrepid ramp rat, who fetches a heavy duty tug and wraps a chain around the tailwheel. When a healthy tug wouldn't budge it, he decided to back up and get a running start....
:erm:














The owners brought in their own mechanics to re-attach the tail section for the ferry flight.

 

[RichardRambone]

We've had the same ramp rat ding up 4 of our airplanes, one of them a brand new 182 spinner. And he's still here, they just put him on the night shift!

 

[Learsforsale]

Story I heard second had from a former co-worker:

The guy who took over ramp services after I left waved a Howard 250, (executive Lockheed Lodestar) onto the grass for parking because the asphalt ramp was full. Lockeed sinks in to the axles. "Not to worry" says the intrepid ramp rat, who fetches a heavy duty tug and wraps a chain around the tailwheel. When a healthy tug wouldn't budge it, he decided to back up and get a running start....
:erm:




The owners brought in their own mechanics to re-attach the tail section for the ferry flight.

Wow, you have to admire the "if it doesn't work the first time, get a bigger hammer" mentality.

The line guy that I mentioned in my first post also showed me how to put the gear pins back into the nose wheel of a Gulfstream. It was my first day so I was not really sure what was going on or what the appropriate amount of force that was acceptable when dealing with aircraft. The pin would not go in, it would not even budge (now that I look back with experience, then wheel was not straight, and the pinholes were not lined up). But this guy grabs a chock and starts using it as a battering ram, when that didn't work he held the rope that connects the chocks and starts swinging it like a bat at this pin in the mis-alligned holes. All the while I am making note that this is acceptable behavior (it was my first day, and this guy was my trainer). Meanwhile the captian heres the commotion, over the APU, and greets us with "WHAT THE F**K ARE YOU DOING?!?" He then moved the nosewheel slightly and the pin easily glided into place. Funny, I don't remember getting tipped for that.

 

[Fearless Tower]

Back in the 80's, some knucklehead at the FBO at KSAN backed a transient Turbo Lance into something nearly splitting the trim tab in half. No one would own up to it and no one bothered to inform the owner/pilot who got to find out on his own during the pre-flight. Pretty pathetic.

 

[epic!]

somone parked one of our flying clubs symphonys directly behind a global express (i think) when the ge started up the symphony almost blew over, luckily it was tied down but the tail did strike the ground cracking it.

 

[Hand Commander]

We landed in Casper, WY for an overnight stop last November. We shut down and up comes the line guy. He didn't really give us a greeting, rather he decided to inform us to not pay attention to all the fire trucks down by one of the FBO's hangars because they had just towed a Citation Sovereign into the side of the building, rupturing a gas line, but all was OK and the fire trucks would be gone shortly. Uh, Ok. I then asked about a hangar. Seemed a little steep so I said to just leave it on the ramp. He then said he'd have to move it down the ramp to a different parking spot. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight. In the lobby, he proceeded to comment and joke about the Citation with the receptionist, in front of several other corporate pilots. Wow.

Another one I heard about a few years ago, although I don't know if it was an FBO or not, was a kid who hit the tail of a DC-4 with a forklift so hard that it was almost ripped completely off. The plane was on contract with the Forest Service as an Air Tanker, but was unrepairable from what I remember.

 

[coloneldan]

I heard a story that happened at what is now Signature in Nashville. Though at the time, it went by another name.

A line guy was towing a 200 KingAir and the towbar came off the tug. To stop the airplane he rammed the tug into the left engine. When asked why he didn't just let the nose of the airplane hit the tug, he said he didn't want to damage the radar. I guess that's that new math. A $5000 radar RT unit is cheaper that a $1.5 million engine.

 

[coloneldan]

I just thought of another good one. This one happened at an FBO I was running. We had a line guy who had been there for about 3 months. He was pushing a Navajo into one of the hangars and pushed it off the concrete apron in front of the hangar. The right main brake caliper was resting on the apron, the wheel was hanging in thin air over the drainage ditch in front of the hangar. The line guy went to the office and told me what had happened, then left to go see the owner. He asked for a management position.

 

[Learsforsale]

I just thought of another good one. This one happened at an FBO I was running. We had a line guy who had been there for about 3 months. He was pushing a Navajo into one of the hangars and pushed it off the concrete apron in front of the hangar. The right main brake caliper was resting on the apron, the wheel was hanging in thin air over the drainage ditch in front of the hangar. The line guy went to the office and told me what had happened, then left to go see the owner. He asked for a management position.

I was giving a van ride over to the terminal and like I had done many times before I struck up a conversation with the passenger. It turns out that he was going to Las Vegas to estimate the damage caused by a towing accident. The geniouses that were towing were supposed to wait for the pilot so he could ride the brakes. They had better things to do, so they decide its time to push. Nobody checked to make sure that the newbie that attached the tow bar to the tow head did it correctly. Everything went fine as they were pushing the plane out of the hanger until they went to stop. They forgot to put the pin into the tow bar and the tow head just slid right off. Now you have a rouge Falcon 2000 cruising around the ramp heading for a GV and a Global Express. There was a lot of confusion and no one really knew what to do. One line guy tried to throw a chock under one of the mains. As can be expected momentum got the best of him and the Falcon jumped the chock, but not before turning slightly off course. Fortunatly the Falcon missed the Global and the GV, and came to rest on a Lear 35. The trailing edge came in contact with the windshield of the Lear. The shift leader was fired, and the newbie got to stay.