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.

 

[Brett Hull]

I fell out the door of a Lear 24 and did a faceplant on the ramp of the FBO in Windsor. Does this count?

 

[siucavflight]

Guy walking into a prop running on an ATR.

 

[340drvr]

A few years ago at KAPA, (so the story goes), line crew towed a Gulfstream over an excavated hole in the pavement that was covered with plywood, main wheel broke through and crunched the wing.

 

[CFIcare]

I remember a good one that happened at an FBO where I was a CFI...at the end of the day one of the line guys (also the guy who was supposed to close for the night) was filling up the fuel truck at the fuel farm on the airport. The truck was taking a while to fill...and a buddy of his pulled in the drive, knocked on the door and the guy let him in. They got to talking...had a soda...decided to go meet up with a few friends at the nearby beach. He left completely forgetting about the truck which overflowed a ridicuclous amount of fuel. In fact it was a huge deal to the city, the fire department, HAZMAT, environmental types and the FBO owner who was too stunned at the stupidity of the situation to get mad. I think his response to the environmental people was..."well, it's not like anyone is ever gonna grow corn in this soil anyway..."

I forget the dollar amount of the fuel, but I do remember it was a staggering number.

 

[Dangerkitty]

Guy walking into a prop running on an ATR.

Were you at KLIT that day?

 

[jaxpilot]

Wow these are good. Having worked the line the past few years at CRG and JAX, I cant say I have had anything funny like that happen while I was on duty. On a serious note-One foggy morning a King Air 350 touched down more than halfway down runway 32 at CRG, a 4000' rwy and overran it. It hit the localizer antenna and the gear sunk halfway into the dirt, severely dented a wing and bent the props.

 

[Axel]

A while back at Signature IAD. A guy started up a Comanche with the chocks still on the nose wheel. New guy ramper got killed going through the prop arc to pull them.

 

[siucavflight]

Were you at KLIT that day?

No, it was in Chicago.

 

[2000flyer]

Back in '91, rampie pushing back a CAL DC10 in Guam for overnight parking. Got it in place, unhooked the towbar and reached for the chocks conveniently placed atop the tug. Turned around to see the beast rolling down a slight grade which rapidly got steeper. DC10's tail came to rest on a BEQ. Luckily no one was in their rooms at the time of the accident. New enlisted quarters were a five star in town, compliments of Continental.

Took the airport, McDonnell-Douglas and others over 12 hours to inch it back up the hill for fear of breaking off the nose gear. I'll never forget the sight of that!

 

[FL420]

An FBO lineman at SDM in San Diego who refueled Bob Hoover's Shrike with Jet-A causing a dual-engine failure and off-airport landing with substantial aircraft damage. The lineman assumed it was a jet because it had a decal on each engine nacelle that said "Turbo."

IIRC, this resulted in FAA guidance that discouraged, if not prohibited, placing words like "turbo" or "jet" on or near the engines or fuel fillers of gasoline-powered aircraft.

 

[shamrock]

I remember back in the mid 90's there was this guy who really wanted to be a pilot so he got a job as a ramper at the FBO near his home. Among other things his job description included fueling the FedEx aircraft that came in to the airport.

Now, as most of you know, large aircraft can hold a lot of fuel and pumping 4000-5000 gallons can take a bit of time (as well as be a little boring) so our ramper takes to bringing along a bit of light reading to pass the time. Flying, AOPA Pilot, that sort of thing. Well one day he's sitting at the back of the truck reading the accident/incident reports in the latest edition of Aviation Safety, waiting patiently for the fuel to pump slowly into the plane. His mind is filled with questions about how the people he is reading about could be so stupid mixed with thoughts of how great it would be to be flying one of the planes he works with instead of fueling them.

His daydreaming is soon interrupted by the screams of a FedEx mechanic telling him to stop fueling. It seems that on this Airbus there are 2 fuel tanks in each wing with the outboard filling first followed by the inboard. In a perfect world the valve to the outboard tank closes when it becomes full allowing the fuel to then fill the inboard. Alas, we are not living in a perfect world. It seems that the valve has stuck open and instead of fuel flowing into the inboard tank it is now cascading out of the fuel vent at the tip of the wing, a fact wasted on our fueler who is busy reading his magazine and cannot see the wing tip from his seat at the rear of the truck anyway. Pandelirium ensues and the clean up begins.

Fat forward a few months. The truth of fuelers actions that fateful night come to light when FedEx refuses to chip in for the cost of the clean up, saying it was the fuelers fault. Our heartbroken fueler is terminated and disappears from sight. Nobody is really sure what has come of him, although there are unconfirmed reports that he is now flying RJ's somewhere down south.

It figures, those regionals will hire anybody.

 

[siucavflight]

Nobody is really sure what has come of him, although there are unconfirmed reports that he is now flying RJ's somewhere down south.

It figures, those regionals will hire anybody.

Maybe he is flying for go jets.

 

[Vector4fun]

An FBO lineman at SDM in San Diego who refueled Bob Hoover's Shrike with Jet-A causing a dual-engine failure and off-airport landing with substantial aircraft damage. The lineman assumed it was a jet because it had a decal on each engine nacelle that said "Turbo."

IIRC from his book, Hoover insisted the same lineman fuel his aircraft the next day. The kid felt so bad about the whole thing. Hoover probably also saved his job. Class act.

 

[kilroy]

Fbo Fubar

Couple of months ago in SRQ a line guys was towing I believe a Citation he had a seizure fell off the tug the tug ran him over then proceeded to push the aircraft into the hanger wall and ramming 2 other aircraft on the way.

A few months prior the pushed Travoltas G3 of the ramp into the mud required a crane to get it back on the ramp

 

[Some guy]

A few years ago at KAPA, (so the story goes), line crew towed a Gulfstream over an excavated hole in the pavement that was covered with plywood, main wheel broke through and crunched the wing.

I used to have pictures of that. They flew that one to SAV and had it checked...Just a couple of scratches and she's been doing well ever since!

Maybe they should have used pressure treated wood!?

 

[Check 6]

In 1999 I was waiting for the boss to show up at a very large and well known FBO at Long Beach for departure in his Lear 35. I had line service hook up a GPU for preflighting. The GPU remained connected to a tug.

The duty lineman asked me if he could use the GPU for a few minutes to start another aircraft; this was not a problem as we were not departing for at least 90 minutes. Lineman turns off the GPU and jumps on the tug and drives off.

Minor problem - he forgot to disconnect the power to the Lear This was a Sunday and the General Manager came in to apologize to me, and to fire the lineman. The damage was not sufficient to ground the aircraft, but the labor involved later was fairly big.

Said FBO then provided us with a chartered Lear 35 for our pending flights while repairs were completed.

Me? I got to ride in the back of the chartered Lear with the boss drinking cocktails and eating their food. Great boss. :beer:

 

[User546]

Couple of months ago in SRQ a line guys was towing I believe a Citation he had a seizure fell off the tug the tug ran him over...

I assume that being ran over by the tug killed the guy having the seizure?

 

[kilroy]

Surprising enough he survived broken leg internal injuries but alive.

I assume that being ran over by the tug killed the guy having the seizure?

 

[TrafficInSight]

IIRC, this resulted in FAA guidance that discouraged, if not prohibited, placing words like "turbo" or "jet" on or near the engines or fuel fillers of gasoline-powered aircraft.

That's why our Aztec says "Charged" on the nacelles.... I just figured it meant we were still paying it off

 

[ultrarunner]

Two little girls, none with a license, took a joy ride into a hangar. They wedged the SUV under a wing of a large jet. Large jet had to have a wing replaced before it flew again. That was bad.